The Playboy and the Prefect
by AndromedaBlack46
Summary: Ariadne Morrigan was never supposed to be sorted into Gryffindor House. She's bright, studious, and the most talented witch in her year, and Gryffindors are just reckless blundering balls of magical testosterone. When McGonagall pairs her with clever, moody, infuriating Sirius Black for a Transfiguration project, Ariadne is sure she'll never get another moment's peace.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Mischief Not Managed**

"I'm busy, Potter."

"C'mon, Morrigan, it'll only take two seconds. For you, anyway. I never quite got the hang of those reversal spells…"

"Maybe if you'd paid attention in Transfiguration last week instead of flirting with Florence Pettiford, you would have a better grasp of it."

"Ah but Florence Pettiford's considerably more attractive to look at than McGonagall, you see.."

Ariadne glanced up from her parchment, every inch of which was covered in ink runes, at James Potter's flushed, boyish face and rumpled hair.

"Gryffindor boys, the only species that prioritizes the possibility of reproduction over potential economic success and survival," she replied dryly.

James' grin only widened. "Aw Morrigan, that's a bit unfair. It's not a possibility with Florence Pettiford. It's a certainty."

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "Can you explain to me one more time why it's my responsibility to ensure that Gryffindors are able to walk on the floor of the common room, rather than the ceiling, after _you_ screwed up the gravity?"

Just then, Remus Lupin appeared at his shoulder. Another Marauder, one of James' inner circle. "How's the reversal coming along? Stebbins is starting to look quite red in the face. Might want to hurry it up."

James leaned forward, resting his hands on the three-volume-deep stacks of books that covered the table in front of Ariadne, accidentally knocking one or two to the floor (much to her displeasure.)

"Morrigan, think of poor Stubbins, stuck upside-down, doomed to roam the common room ceiling for all his days. Isn't it your responsibility as a prefect to look out for the well-being of your fellow Gryffindors? What would McGonagall think?"

"It's my responsibility as a prefect to report both of you for disrupting everyone's study time with a stupid prank," responded Ariadne, arching a brow.

James immediately backed away from her table with a look of mild alarm, and Lupin raised his hands in surrender.

"While I entirely support your right to report the masterminds of this little trick to Professor McGonagall, I promise you on my honor, Miss Morrigan, that I had nothing to do with it," said Lupin.

 _Masterminds_? thought Ariadne _. Then who else…?_

Her question was answered for her when the portrait door swung open and a tall, lean young man with dark shoulder-length hair slipped effortlessly into the common room. Deftly avoiding the enchanted spot that would flip him upside-down and glue his feet to the ceiling, he sauntered over to the table where Ariadne was studying.

 _Of course_ , she thought. _Sirius Black._

"James, Remus," greeted Sirius languidly as he rested his elbows on their shoulders and crossed his legs. "Miss Morrigan," he added, tilting his head toward her slightly in acknowledgement.

Ariadne responded with silence and a look of distaste. When Lupin called her "Miss Morrigan," she had no doubt it was out of gentlemanly politeness, and Remus had never been anything but warm and cordial towards her (despite keeping company with a less than savory group.) But when Sirius addressed her the same way, she couldn't help but detect the slightest hint of mockery in his tone, as though there was a little smirk hidden behind the words.

Without speaking to any of them or even uttering an incantation, Ariadne twirled her wand in a complex but precise movement and Stubbins yelled and fell to the floor in a heap, along with a few other unfortunate souls who had been trapped in the enchantment.

"Consider that your warning. One more prank like this and all three of you will be enjoying a lovely personal tea date with McGonagall." She had already returned to her Ancient Runes notes.

Sirius scoffed. " _That's_ what you needed help with? A reversal charm? I can do those in my sleep."

"I don't remember ever learning that in Transfiguration," said James blankly.

"It's a complicated spell. It can go badly wrong if you're not careful. Messing with gravity fields and such," replied Lupin.

"You should've just asked me," said Sirius, clapping James on the back.

"Couldn't find you in the dormitory or the Great Hall, mate," answered James.

Sirius grinned. "That's because you only checked _our_ dormitory." James grinned back. Lupin smiled but seemed otherwise indifferent. Ariadne watched them head out of the portrait hole, probably to eat more or hatch their next absurd plot. It seemed like they never studied, yet they exceeded expectations in classes and the teachers praised them for their brightness. James, Remus and Lupin had both earned a good number of OWLs and were preparing for their NEWTs, just like Ariadne. But she knew for a fact that she had earned the highest marks on her OWLs in the last hundred years of Hogwarts history—"Outstanding" in eleven subjects. Surprisingly (or perhaps not) Sirius was right behind her with the second-highest marks in their year. She had just edged him out with a better grade in Arithmancy.

And she knew her reversal spell was better than his.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Plotting**

Ariadne woke early the next morning to get some studying done in the library before class. She slipped out of her four-poster bed, showered and dressed, trying not to disturb her dormitory-mates. By now, they were used to her strange sleeping and waking habits—coming to bed after late nights in front of the common room fire, and waking at the crack of dawn to polish and revise essays. Her best friend, Sophia, joked that the only candlelit dinner Ariadne ever enjoyed was with a date with _Advanced Rune Translation_ and pumpkin pastieswhile burning the midnight oil. Weirdest of all to her classmates, Ariadne didn't just study to pass her tests. She read _Transfiguration Today_ every night and checked out history of magic books beyond those assigned by Professor Binns. She was currently petitioning Professor McGonagall to add a Theory of Magic course to the curriculum. Ariadne's knowledge of magical theory and history already surpassed those of most fully-qualified, Hogwarts-educated witches and wizards. She intended to become a professor at Hogwarts as soon as she had completed her NEWTs.

The library was deserted, of course. Madam Pince, the librarian, was on very good terms with Ariadne, seeing as she had pored over many dusty volumes students hadn't touched in generations, and always returned her books on time and in impeccable condition. She ushered Ariadne into the library with the closest expression to smiling she ever wore and went back to repairing the binding of an old book.

Ariadne had just settled into her History of Magic notes when she suddenly realized she was not alone. A soft shuffling of papers emanated from the bookcase behind her. She froze, then decided to just ignore it and mind her own business.

But of course, whoever it was wouldn't let her.

"Morning, Morrigan," murmured a voice right by her ear. Ariadne's heart leapt out of her ribcage. Turning slowly and trying to retain her outward composure, her gaze met a dark, brooding pair of eyes, though at the moment they were lit by a spark of amusement.

"Is sneaking up on unsuspecting people who are minding their own business your typical form of greeting?" replied Ariadne, looking back at her notes.

"Only when it's 6:30 in the morning and someone disturbs my peaceful solitude," he answered.

 _Disturbs his solitude_. As though he owned the library. So typical.

Much to her annoyance, Sirius took the seat next to her and set down a stack of creased and dusty books. Ariadne couldn't help but notice the titles of a few. _Spells of Illusion and Deception. The Wizard's Guide to Going Unnoticed._

Sirius noticed her looking and leaned in. "Know anything about doubling enchantments, Morrigan?" he asked in a low voice.

"Creates an illusory body double that a witch or wizard can remotely project and control," answered Ariadne automatically.

"Good. Full marks," said Sirius ironically, tilting his chair back on two legs. He said nothing more, and continued perusing _Spells of Illusion and Deception._

Ariadne couldn't help herself. "They're also dark magic, and strictly forbidden by wizarding law. Class Three restricted spells."

Sirius merely looked up from his book for a moment.

Ariadne rather too loudly shut her own book. "Black, if I see a double-image of you wandering the castle…"

"Ah, but that's the beauty of it, my love. You wouldn't know it's not me."

"There are ways to identify a double from a real wizard. It's only an illusion, and therefore fallible. And I'm not your 'love'."

Completely ignoring her last comment, Sirius answered, "But they're very difficult to tell apart. Most wizards don't know the difference."

"I'm not most wizards."

Sirius looked up and held her gaze again, as if evaluating her statement. Finally, he closed his book and ever so slowly leaned toward Ariadne.

"Imagine you needed to be in two places at once. Your corporeal form needs to be somewhere to accomplish a very important task, a secret task, involving magic. But you need someone else to think you are somewhere else, to distract them so they don't interfere with this task. No one else can carry out the distraction for you, and no one else can carry out that important magical task, because only you have the skill. It is crucial that everyone else, and one person in particular, be convinced that you are where you're supposed to be."

To her surprise, Ariadne realized she had been pulled in by his intense, silky voice, leaning in closer to hear him.

"A doubling enchantment would be your only choice. Wouldn't you agree?"

Ariadne recovered herself. "It obviously depends on what this important task is. Restricted spells aren't meant to be used lightly."

"Let's assume it's an absolutely critical task. Vital to the safety of Hogwarts castle and everyone in it."

Ariadne narrowed her eyes at him skeptically.

"So what do you think?"

"What do I think about what?"

"The doubling enchantment. Would you lend a helping hand, Morrigan? You say you could tell a weak illusion from a strong one. I'll practice, you'll help me get better."

She knew he was appealing to her pride in her magical skill to pull her into his scheme. But then, maybe he did actually need her help? They were in all the same classes. They competed against each other for the highest marks. Sirius knew what she was capable of.

"So you expect me to risk my prefect status, expulsion, and even punishment by wizarding law, for some harebrained scheme you won't even explain to me properly?"

Sirius sighed and slumped back in his chair. "I knew you were going to say that. Can't even excite you with a little mystery."

"It's going to take more than a little mystery to excite me."

Sirius's eyes glinted, as if he took that as a challenge. "All right, Morrigan. We'll see." And then, infuriatingly, he went back to studying.

Ariadne tried to follow suit, though of course she was burning with curiosity. But she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

Sirius sighed again. "Shame."

"What?"

"That you'll never get the satisfaction of helping me carry out my important mission."

Ariadne rolled her eyes. He would simply not give up trying to impress her.

"I mean, how else am I going to convince Flitwick that I'm in Charms class while I'm actually…"

Ariadne couldn't deal with it anymore. "Doing WHAT, Black? Spit it out, for Merlin's sake."

Sirius grinned at her. "Sneaking Catherine Whipple out of the castle into Hogsmeade, of course."

 **A/N: Welcome to my little Potterverse :) I know Sirius/OC fics are a dime a dozen, but I promise Ariadne will be different from any character you've read before! She's a force of nature. I started writing this fic a while ago and just never published it, so I have about 6 chapters ready to go, and I'll post one a day for the next week-ish. Slight warning: content is likely to get more explicit in the coming chapters, hence the M rating. I hope you'll stick around, and thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Partners**

 _Concentrate_ , thought Ariadne to herself. _Concentrate_ … _almost there_ …

"OY!"

Ariadne lowered her wand and exhaled in exasperation. The potbelly pig she was attempting to transfigure into a trunk blinked back at her, unperturbed. Her intent focus had been fully broken by the commotion occurring at the opposite end of the Transfiguration classroom.

"Grab it from behind, Lupin! Get it!"

"It's too fast!"

"WATCH THAT CABINET—"

There was a tremendous crash, mingled with the terrified squeals of a startled pig, the gasps of a large number of Gryffindor girls, and the groans and laughter of four insufferable teenage boys.

The scared, panting pig had run headfirst into the cabinet of wine goblets the first-years had been practicing turning into guinea fowls. Someone (and Ariadne thought she could hazard a guess who) thought it would be amusing to take the pig for a little ride around the classroom. The pig evidently disagreed with this proposition.

McGonagall strode over to where Sirius and James were doubled over in laughter beside the pitiful and dazed potbelly pig sitting in a pile of shattered glass and wood. With a wave of her wand, the glasses and smashed cabinet repaired themselves and the pig zoomed into his cage in the corner of the classroom. Sirius and James attempted to compose themselves while McGonagall turned her disapproving gaze towards them.

"I do not know what about this lesson suggested to you two that it might be acceptable to treat animal subjects as objects for your entertainment, but I suggest you disabuse yourselves of that notion immediately."

James was struggling to keep a straight face, but Ariadne noticed that Sirius was discreetly glancing around the classroom, seemingly to confirm that every eye was on him. _He's actually enjoying the attention_ , she thought with disbelief.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor," said McGonagall icily as she turned away with a sweep of her robes.

"Awww Professor…" complained James. Sirius merely shrugged and ran his fingers through his dark hair, pushing it back from his face.

McGonagall ignored him. "And ten points for Miss Morrigan being the only person to successfully transfigure her pig and move on to a second attempt."

James caught Ariadne's eye and winked at her across the classroom, as if to say he owed her one for digging them halfway out of the deficit of points. Sirius, however, seemed more annoyed than when McGonagall had deducted points in the first place.

"…the final project will be due just prior to the practical component of your Transfiguration exam," concluded McGonagall. "If you have questions, please ask for clarification." The bell rang and her voice trailed off into the noise of chatter.

"Miss Morrigan, a word please," called Professor McGonagall into the bustle of everyone packing up.

If any other name had been called by the Head of Gryffindor House, it would have been cause for trepidation. If McGonagall had called "Mr. Potter," it would have been followed with titters and "ohhhs," and he likely would have strutted to the front of the room, pretending not to care but secretly enjoying the attention (as Ariadne had witnessed numerous times before.) If McGonagall had called for "Mr. Black," it would have set off a wave of girlish giggles and impressed murmurs as students speculated about how he had flouted the rules this time. More than likely, McGonagall would summon both James and Sirius together in the same breath, and Ariadne had seen the tag-team cockily swagger to her desk too many times to count.

But because Ariadne Morrigan was Ariadne Morrigan, McGonagall calling her name caused no stir at all. It was probably just prefect stuff, or McGonagall arranging her packed exam schedule.

Ariadne hoisted her heavy bag over her shoulder and approached Professor McGonagall's desk. As usual, McGonagall was brisk and to the point.

"You will be working with Mr. Black on the Transfiguration project," she informed Ariadne.

Ariadne stared. She was usually in McGonagall's good books, because she did exactly what McGonagall wanted. But then again, McGonagall rarely ever asked her to do anything she didn't want to do. Prefect duties, organizing the House championship feast, completing extra study outside of class…Ariadne's goals and McGonagall's goals for her tended to align.

Except for this one.

"Um, Professor…can I ask why you want me to work with Black?"

McGonagall looked up from the stacks of essays she was organizing. "I thought that would have been fairly obvious. Though you have both demonstrated considerable talent in the field of Transfiguration, Mr. Black lacks a sense of work ethic. Likewise, you occasionally lack the spark of inventiveness that could take your Transfiguration abilities to the next level. I believe you could both learn much from each other."

 _Spark of inventiveness?_ Was she referring to Black's total disregard for rules and conventions? But otherwise, Ariadne couldn't find anything to argue with in McGonagall's statement. She clearly wanted Ariadne to straighten up Sirius's study habits. And she could not deny that they needed straightening.

Suppressing a sigh, Ariadne turned around and slipped out the classroom door, thinking about the Arithmancy homework she had to turn in during her next class. At the last moment, she realized that Sirius was not aware of McGonagall's plan to transfigure him into a model student via this project. Turning back to classroom door, she caught Sirius just as he was emerging, laughing languidly at something James had said.

"Black!" she called to him.

Sirius turned around and arched a brow at her.

"Common Room, 8pm tonight. Transfiguration project."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: In Theory**

 _Thump_. Ariadne dropped a stack of thick, battered volumes on the table in front of Sirius, who was sprawled out on a squishy couch in the Common Room. He looked surprised, and then amused.

"What's all this, Morrigan?" he drawled.

"Reading material," answered Ariade crisply, now organizing the books based on topic.

Sirius watched her for a moment and then made to get up. "Excellent, I'll leave you to it then. Let me know when you need help writing up the essay."

Ariadne shot him such a deadly look that Sirius actually sat back down.

"These are for _you_ , Transfiguration prodigy. I've read them all already."

"What an incredible waste of your time," murmured Sirius.

"Excuse me?"

Sirius sighed and spread his legs even wider over the couch, if that were possible. "Transfiguration Theory is a waste of time. It's a bunch of abstract rubbish. All that matters is, can you do the spell, or not?"

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "And how are you supposed to properly execute a spell if you don't understand how it works? Transfiguration is a science, not a game of Quidditch."

"The science doesn't matter if you can execute the spell. And by the way, Quidditch has theory and tactics, too, love."

 _Point taken_ _ **,**_ thought Ariadne. "Understanding the theory can help you execute better and more consistently. And it applies to other spells and branches of magic. Also, I'm not your love."

Ignoring her last comment, as usual, Sirius answered with a smirk, "Then how have I gotten top marks in Transfiguration since second year without reading a single book about theory?"

Ariadne leaned in, resting her hands on the table. "One, you don't have the top marks in our year in Transfiguration. I do. Two, you do need theory, because your conjuring needs work, and you know it. You consistently underestimate the difficulty of conjuring complex items because you don't understand how the formulas for complexity are weighted. So start reading," Ariadne patted the stack of books, "and let me know when you have a better grasp of the 'abstract rubbish.'"

Sirius actually looked dumbfounded for half a second. He opened his mouth to respond, probably to her critique of his conjuring abilities, but seemed to think better of it. "Alright, Morrigan. I'll make you a deal."

Ariadne sighed in frustration. "What part of 'do the reading and don't talk to me until it's done' suggests that I'm going to strike a deal with you, Black?"

"The deal is," continued Sirius as if she hadn't spoken at all, "I'll read this rubbish theory"—he casually put his feet up on the stack of books, crossing his legs—"if you come to the Quidditch afterparty tomorrow night."

As a prefect, Quidditch match afterparties were the bane of Ariadne's existence. Technically, celebrations were permitted in the common room after a Quidditch victory (McGonagall certainly did not want to prevent anything that boosted House spirit and pride, in the hopes that it would motivate them to win more matches and, ultimately, the House cup) but the prefects were supposed to put a stop to any loud or unruly behavior. The problem was, Gryffindor parties tended to get very out of hand, very quickly. Especially now that James and Sirius were of age and had somehow discovered a way to smuggle mead, butterbeer and Firewhiskey into the castle. Ever since that development, Ariadne had dealt with staggering drunk third-years, noise complaints from Ravenclaws who could hear the music as far away as the library, and ill-advised hookups happening right on the communal armchairs of the Common Room. There were also usually one or two guys who completely forgot about the enchantments and attempted to drunkenly stumble up to the girls' dormitories, only to slide back down and arrive at the foot of the partiers in a crumpled, sloppy heap.

Not to mention that the parties made it virtually impossible for Ariadne to study, because the noise was so intense she couldn't concentrate in the dormitory, and she couldn't escape to the library because she was required to supervise the party to ensure that nobody got so badly messed up that they needed to be taken to the hospital wing. So far, she had a clean record, but she couldn't be sure how long it would last.

Sirius watched the internal struggle she couldn't suppress from playing out on her face with amusement. Ariadne hated the parties and actually participating in one would interfere with her ability to monitor it. On the other hand, she needed Sirius to do this theoretical reading if they were going to get top marks on the Transfiguration project.

"I'm not asking you to drop out of Hogwarts and become a Death Eater. It's a party, love."

Ariadne sighed in frustration. She should have known that working with Sirius Black wouldn't be that easy. "Fine. I'll show up to the seething cesspool of alcohol and hormones that you lot like to call a 'party.' _If_ you finish at least volume one of _Theorizing Transformation_ by tomorrow night."

"Consider it done."

Sirius had resumed his elegantly bored posture, legs crossed on the table and arms spread over the back of the couch. On top of the ridiculous pact she had just made, this just irritated Ariadne even more.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: In Practice**

"I can't believe you're actually coming to the party tonight!" squealed a female voice right in Ariadne's ear.

"Take it down an octave, please, Sophie," said Ariadne, wincing. Sophia quieted down but replaced her squealing with happy little hops and claps. Sometimes Ariadne wondered what on earth could have bound them so tightly as friends since first year. But she couldn't imagine her life without Sophie's sunshiny energy and candor.

They were standing in front of a full-length mirror in the Gryffindor seventh-year girls' dormitory; Ariadne, carefully putting up her hair and applying eyeliner; Sophie, "helping" and getting herself ready (in theory) but mostly jumping around and effusing. The three other seventh-year girls were variously showering, rummaging through trunks of clothes, and sending puffs of makeup into the air. Priya stopped by the mirror to borrow a hair tie from Sophie, and paused to admire Ariadne's makeup. "So pretty, Ari," she complimented. "Your eyes are to die for."

"Says the girl whose cheekbones could slice wormwood," responded Ariadne.

Priya laughed, wrangling with her long, dark hair. "So what convinced Miss Responsible to let loose for a night?"

Sophie almost convulsed with her desire to tell the story of her deal with Sirius—except that Ariadne had forbidden her to mention it to anyone. Priya was too perceptive, though, and had known Sophie too long not to pick up on her body language.

"Spill it, Soph," she commanded, waving a hairbrush around authoritatively.

Sophie hugged herself and looked at Ariadne pleadingly. Ariadne sighed. "Fine, you can tell her."

"SIRIUSBLACKMADEHERITWASADEALTODOTHETRANSFIG—"

"Whoa, whoa, Sophie! Try talking at a normal human pace rather than startled hippogriff speed."

Sophie took a deep breath to calm herself down. "Sirius. Black. Made her a deal—"

" _Sirius_? Like _that_ Sirius Black?" interrupted Priya, already surprised.

"How many Siriuses do you know at Hogwarts?" replied Ariadne rather snippily.

Priya raised her eyebrows suggestively. "Since when has prefect Ariadne Morrigan been hanging around with official seventh-year playboy Sirius Black?"

"We don't 'hang around,'" said Ariadne impatiently. Meanwhile, Sophie had almost keeled over with the effort of holding in the rest of the juicy story. "Okay, Soph, you can explain the rest."

"Sirius and Ari are Transfiguration partners," gasped Sophie at last. "McGonagall made them. So Ari wanted Sirius to work on the project, and he said okay but only if she came to the party because he wants to see her at the party and dance with her and kiss her and marry her—"

Ariadne laughed at Sophie's rapid descent into absurdity, but Priya was still raising her eyebrows, intrigued. "Why exactly does Sirius Black want you to go to this party so badly?"

Ariadne had honestly not even considered this question. She agreed to the deal because she needed to get Sirius to read, and that was that.

"I don't know, just one of his dumb Marauder pranks, probably. Maybe he's planning to set the Common Room on fire and watch me have a prefect panic attack."

"Maybe," said Priya, unconvinced. "Not just any girl gets a personal party invitation from Mr.-I'm-Too-Good-For-Everyone Sirius Black, though. There are a half-dozen Gryffindor girls alone who are dying for him to even make eye contact in the hallway between Charms and Potions."

It was Ariadne's turn to raise her eyebrows. "Why? He's arrogant, lazy and thinks he's too brilliant for schoolwork. Not to mention he does fairly illegal things with no regard for how dangerous they are just to show off."

"But his _hair_."

"And those brooding eyes."

"He's quite fit, too."

"Marjorie said when she saw him swimming in the lake with his shirt off…"

"Okay, okay, I get it," said Ariadne. "People think he's attractive. But half of his appeal is the cool and aloof act. You all wouldn't be nearly so crazy about him if he didn't act like he doesn't care." She pulled out her lipstick and started applying it. "At least Potter is honest about loving all the attention he gets. Black pretends like he's above it all, but he secretly craves it."

"Huh."

"Yeah I guess."

"Right as usual, Ari."

"Anyway, I might not be seducing too-cool-for-school Sirius Black, but I _do_ know that if Sirius and Potter are at the party, Remus will be there, and that means I need just the right outfit…" Priya's words trailed off as she dove headfirst into a pool of tangled clothes spilling out of her trunk.

Technically, (as Ariadne knew from having memorized the book of school rules back to front) Hogwarts students were required to wear their school robes at all times. But the rules didn't necessarily specify what they could wear _under_ their robes. Sure, they usually wore standard school uniforms consisting of white blouses, plaid skirts, and slacks, but every good Gryffindor knew to sneak in a few more exciting items at the bottom of their trunk when packing for a new school year. Skirts got shorter, blouses tighter and more colorful, and many would simply wear strapless skintight dresses or corsets and skinny jeans under their robes. Before the night was over, most of the robes came off.

Ariadne had chosen a black velvet pencil skirt and a fire-engine red blouse, which matched her lips. Priya, Sophie and many others had told her she was pretty and could turn heads when she entered a room, with her glossy black hair, golden-brown skin and striking round eyes. Looks wouldn't get her NEWTs, though, so even if Ariadne recognized this, she didn't spend much time thinking about it most days.

But today wasn't most days. And if Ariadne Morrigan was going to party, she was going to look as good as the high standards she set for everything else.

"AND THE MAN OF THE MOMENT…POTTER!"

James Potter rose to the ceiling of the common room, hovering on his Shooting Star with his fists in the air, while the already tipsy crowd of Gryffindors bellowed their approval. Peter Pettigrew and a few other members of the James Potter fan club started up a chorus of the "Gryffindor song"—the Sorting Hat's description of Gryffindor from their first year, with a few raunchy alterations. When they had finished, someone cranked up the Wizarding Wireless set and the castle walls seemed to thrum with vibrations. Ariadne expected a noise complaint from a disgruntled Ravenclaw at any moment.

She was standing in a corner with a bottle of butterbeer in hand, as far away as she could possibly be from Potter and his groupies in the close, cozy common room. Sophie couldn't resist the excitement of the crowd and had joined them to cheer on James, but Priya stayed with Ariadne for slightly calmer conversation, along with a few others.

"So what is this…Gryffindor's fourth consecutive win?"

"Potter and his crew had already planned this party before the match today even happened," said Ariadne, taking a sip. "They were _that_ confident they would win."

"To be fair, Hufflepuff hasn't had a solid Chaser trio in almost five years, and Gryffindor's front is probably the strongest it's ever been," added Lupin.

"How do you know they had already planned it?" asked Priya.

Ariadne hesitated for a fraction of a second. "Black told me."

She thought she saw the tiniest curve on Remus' lips as he raised his butterbeer for another sip. But she told herself she must have been imagining it.

"Well it doesn't hurt to plan ahead, right? I mean, they couldn't have thrown this together in a few hours," said Priya.

By "this," Priya meant the massive gold and red banners bearing the Gryffindor lion hung across the back wall of the common room, golden and scarlet streamers hovering in the air above them, and all the lights dimmed except for real torches flickering with red and gold flames. Last but not least, the centerpiece of the affair, a table dragged into the center of the common room literally overflowing with wizard alcohol. There were six-packs of bottled Butterbeer stacked as high as Ariadne's shoulder, and a few more pitchers on the table. And then, gleaming red in the firelight like a warning and a temptation at the same time, half a dozen handles of Firewhiskey. _No doubt funded by the generous spending money provided by Mr. and Mrs. Potter to their son every month_ , thought Ariadne.

"It's getting so hot in here," commented Ariadne, shrugging off her heavy black robe.

She wasn't the absolute last person to come to the same conclusion and discard this essential wizarding garment, but she certainly wasn't the first, either. Robes were draped over the backs of armchairs and thrown carelessly across the staircase bannisters. Figuring out which robes belonged to who would be a nightmare in the morning.

While Lupin, Priya and Sophie hypothesized about how Potter and Black had managed to pull all this together while they supposedly were in double-period Charms yesterday afternoon and at the Quidditch match all day today, Ariadne felt a pair of eyes on her. She turned her head discreetly and sensed it coming from a cluster of armchairs pulled around the common room fire. There, a group of girls were draped across the chairs in varying states of exposure. One perched on the arm, her short pleated skirt revealing a long stretch of crossed legs; another sat on the floor with her back against the chair; and a third hung over the chair back, speaking into the occupant's ear. That occupant, of course, was none other than Sirius Black, sprawled sideways over the armchair with a Firewhiskey in hand and now gazing at Ariadne with his brooding black eyes.

Despite being the reason why Ariadne was even at this party in the first place, Sirius had entirely ignored her existence up to this point. He had occupied himself earlier in the evening by bewitching James' Quidditch robes so they were fringed with heatless flames and taking a few rounds of shots, and now seemed content to lounge with his posse of attractive girls. That is, until he noticed Ariadne.

Ariadne loosed her hair from her half-updo and let it fall into glossy waves, and angled her bare shoulders and tightly wrapped waist slightly to the right to give him a proper show. Sirius's stares didn't bother her. She knew how good she looked and she was aware that she would attract attention. Later, she couldn't be sure if she would have acted exactly this way had she not been under the influence of two Butterbeers, but in the moment, she simply wanted to dominate Sirius Black's mind. After ensuring that his attention was fully occupied by her, she turned her own attention back to the group's conversation.

"Flitwick's one failed summoning charm away from losing it if Potter and Black skip class to get booze again," Lupin was joking.

"Can't you exert your good influence on them and turn them into straight-O students like you?" said Priya playfully, lightly touching Remus's arm.

Lupin smiled in his good-natured way, and gesturing toward Ariadne, said, "Well evidently that's McGonagall's plan in pairing up Sirius and Morrigan."

Ariadne felt a fleeting jump in her stomach, like someone had slipped a Peppermint Frog into her drink. She brushed off the feeling. What did it matter if people knew she and Sirius were working together on the Transfiguration project?It wasn't like it was a secret or anything.

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear," said a husky voice near Ariadne's ear. At the same time, a shot glass was pressed into her hand and significantly larger, rougher hand closed her fingers around it.

But Ariadne knew he would eventually come over, so she was expecting him. "Learned Horatio's formulas yet, Black?"

"The difficulty of transforming an object is directly related to its weight and complexity and inversely related to the number of magical properties that inhere in the object," answered Sirius, slowly raising his glass to his lips.

"Good. And how do you determine the relative values of the size and shape of the object?"

Sirius gently grasped the hand that was holding her shot glass, and moving closer, guided it up to her lips. "By looking at the object very carefully, assessing its shape, angles, openings, and spaces, and if necessary, holding it," he murmured, barely audible. "Now drink up, Morrigan."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Silence and Noise**

Ariadne might have told off the Ravenclaw who came around banging loudly on the portrait hole door complaining about the noise, but she couldn't clearly remember. The supply of Firewhiskey on the table was getting dangerously low, and so was the neckline of her blouse as she opened button after button in the hopes of cooling down a bit. The party was getting louder and looser than ever. James Potter had put his reversal spell skills to good use and, after having accomplished the feat on the ground, was now chugging a pint of Butterbeer upside down from the ceiling, egged on by an increasingly hoarse crowd. Florence Pettiford and Stebbins looked more or less like clothed versions of the mating nifflers Ariadne had observed in Care of Magical Creatures last week, and Priya and Lupin were giggling in the shadows by the fireplace, swaddled in one of the crimson Gryffindor banners she had torn off the wall. Meanwhile, a cluster of closely-packed bodies appeared to be writhing in the shadows in time to the music still blasting from the wireless set.

"It's too loud," muttered Ariadne.

"Pardon, love?"

"It's too LOUD in here," Ariadne said again, practically yelling to be heard over the pounding bass. "There's no way McGonagall or Filch isn't going to notice."

Sirius shrugged. "And if they do? We get shut down eventually. At least we can enjoy ourselves until then."

"And if they do, it's _my_ fault for allowing things to get out of control, as the prefect on-duty."

"Relax, Morrigan. McGonagall loves you. You can get away with one night of debauchery."

"You might not give a murtlap's arse about your reputation, Black, but some of us have ambitions."

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "First of all, I do have a very important reputation to maintain, it just doesn't involve being McGonagall's pet and measuring down to the half-inch of my parchment for Vector's essays. It has more to do with, say, how many shots of Firewhiskey I've taken in one night and exactly what I did to greasy Snivellus that he can no longer look straight at a flobberworm. Second, are you telling me that _this_ —" he gestured around at the party, James' screaming fanclub, the tightly wound cluster of dancing bodies, all flickering in the torchlight—"isn't ambitious?"

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "Being a borderline alcoholic and throwing wild parties? These are supposed to be your great accomplishments?"

"You forgot being effortlessly brilliant and irresistibly attractive," he added in a low voice, leaning in close to her ear so she could hear him. The next thing she heard was the _pop_ of yet another bottle of butterbeer being opened. "Cheers," he added, taking a swig.

Ariadne wondered why she was even having this conversation. Then, she finally arrived at a solution to the noise problem, as if a _lumos_ charm had been set off in her alcohol-fogged brain.

 _Silencing charms!_ Of course. How could she have been so stupid?

"I'm such an idiot," she muttered out loud to herself.

"I wouldn't be quite so hard on yourself, love."

Ariadne ignored him. She needed to thoroughly saturate the walls of the common room with silencing charms, essentially creating a soundproof barrier between them and the rest of the castle. Based on the circumference of the circular room and the level of noise, she guessed it would take a high density of charms per square foot to accomplish this. It would take too long to do it all herself…

"Black," she said suddenly, grabbing his arm. "Help me."

Sirius seemed surprised by the sudden physical contact, but not entirely opposed to it. "How can I be of service, Miss Morrigan? If it's more alcoholic beverages you require, I can provide that. Or maybe you need help with something else…?" he trailed off suggestively.

"Help me put silencing charms around the common room walls so that annoying Ravenclaw doesn't come back."

She had already turned around and gestured for him to follow. This time, it was his turn to grab her arm.

"Ah-ah-ah… no prefect stuff tonight."

Ariadne swung around. "Excuse me?"

He didn't loosen his grip on her arm. "You're not allowed to do any prefect duties tonight. Remember the deal?"

Ariadne wrinkled her nose in confusion and annoyance. "I remember 'do the reading, and I'll come to the party.' That was the extent of the deal, Black."

"You agreed to come to the party...in the capacity of a regular Gryffindor. Not as a prefect."

"Did you read the appendices to _Theorizing Transformation_?"

"Did I—what?"

"Don't add extraneous conditions to your side of the deal, Black, and I won't add any to mine. Now, are you going to help me with these silencing charms, or not?"

Sirius sighed and took another sip of his beer. Ariadne uncomfortably noticed that he still had not let go of her arm and wrenched it away. Sirius raised his eyebrows at her, sighed again, and finally said in a meant-to-be-casual sort of voice, "McGonagall and Filch aren't coming."

Ariadne raised her eyebrows. "And how do you know that?"

"They aren't. Just…trust me."

"Trust you…like I trusted you to stick to this deal? Or maybe in the library, when I was supposed to trust you about your 'top secret important mission?'"

Sirius gave Ariadne an insufferably exasperated look, as though she were making his life supremely difficult. "All right, Morrigan, since you won't accept the easy answer…let me let you in on a little secret. Follow me." And he headed toward the staircase leading to the boys' dormitory.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: I Solemnly Swear**

"This is disgusting."

Sirius had just ushered her into the seventh-year boys' dormitory. It looked very much like one might expect a room shared by four 17-year-old boys to look. Crumpled parchment and chocolate frog wrappers littered the floor and half-open trunks sat at odd positions as if creating an obstacle course along the floor. Empty cardboard cases once full of butterbeer were stacked by the door, and a highly suspicious-looking clump of fur and maybe other substances that Ariadne did not want to think about sat at her feet. The state of each four-poster bed made it obvious to whom it belonged. The bed nearest the door was tidily made up with a neat stack of books and parchment on the bedside table. _Lupin, of course,_ thought Ariadne. The next bed seemed to be the epicenter of the candy wrappers and shredded parchment explosion. _Pettigrew_ , she thought with a grimace. The third bed was coated in Quidditch gear, broomstick supplies and red-and-gold Gryffindor regalia. _Potter_. And then there was the farthest bed, the one Sirius was leading her to now.

"Don't mince words, do you, Morrigan?" he said while rummaging through his own trunk, a black leather thing, strangely, she noticed, embossed with silver and green.

"I don't see the point."

She folded her arms unthinkingly over her chest, covering some of what was exposed when she had unbuttoned her blouse. She thought she caught Sirius glancing at her from the corner of her eye, but he quickly resumed his search.

Sirius' portion of the room was mostly decorated with posters of Muggle women in bikinis hanging suggestively over motorcycles or lounging on beaches. She only knew they were Muggle because most of them did not move, with the exception of one woman in a red dress who was winking at her coyly. But on the bedside table, he also had a stunning astronomical model of the solar system encased in a glass globe, with each planet and moon a twinkling crystal in the black void.

"Beautiful," Ariadne murmured.

Sirius caught her looking at the model and said briefly, "A gift from my cousin Andromeda. Want a drink?"

Ariadne stared at him and the glass of amber liquid he proffered in disbelief. "There isn't enough alcohol for you downstairs?"

"This is mulled mead. Too expensive to buy for the commoners. It's my private stash." He shrugged and drained the glass himself.

"Can you show me whatever this important thing is so I can get out of here, Black? The seventh-year boys dormitory isn't exactly my preferred place to spend my night."

"How can you say that when you've only just gotten here?" he asked in mock indignation.

"I've been here before."

Sirius raised his eyebrows at her.

"To confiscate contraband."

"Naturally."

Ariadne caught the implication in his tone and didn't like it.

"Speaking of contraband," he continued, now holding something behind his back, "remember that part of the deal where you aren't acting as prefect for this one night?"

"No."

"Morrigan, please, work with me here. This…thing I'm about to show you will ensure that McGonagall and Filch aren't coming to end our revelry. Ergo, you will not be on the hook for failing to do your job as a prefect and shutting down the party. Ergo, you should not confiscate the object I'm about to show you."

"Black, the last time I promised you something, it was to come to this stupid party, and that's not going so well. So you'll forgive me if I hesitate to make any more promises."

"Well, if you can't swear to me that you won't turn this in to a Hogwarts professor, then I can't explain to you how I know where every single one of them is, right now."

"You're bluffing."

"Am I? I told you that Filch and McGonagall aren't coming anywhere near our little gathering. If I lied to you about that and they did show up, wouldn't that make me look rather bad?"

"You don't have much a reputation with me to save, Black."

"Ah, right, 'borderline alcoholic and wild parties.' Let me show you something else that I'm capable of doing. Give me a chance to change your mind." He paused. "Besides, it might be a useful little Charms lesson for you. If you're at all interested in magical geography and tracking enchantments."

He really did know the way into her head. Ariadne couldn't deny that she was intrigued. Any object capable of tracking the precise locations of a dozen Hogwarts professors in real time would involve advanced magic indeed. And a lot of rule-breaking.

"Last call, Morrigan," he said, waving a blank, ragged piece of parchment in front of her tauntingly.

"All right," said Ariadne, thinking quickly and learning from his games. "I won't report this definitely illicit and possibly illegal…object," she answered, "if you agree to do all of the theory reading in the next two weeks."

Sirius seemed a little peeved to find his own bargaining scheme used against him. "I've already told you, Morrigan, the theory is useless. I can get us top marks on this project without reading anything. Just leave it to me."

"Unless you can learn to transfigure McGonagall into a hibernating mooncalf that isn't inordinately obsessed with theory, I highly doubt that."

"Look, I don't even have to show you this or tell you anything about it. I'm doing you a favor, love. You can't bargain on that."

"Well, I suppose you'll never get to explain to me how those advanced tracking enchantments work," said Ariadne, shrugging.

The silence of their stalemate hung in the air between them, broken only by the sound of shrieks and thrumming music from the party below. Ariadne was wagering on Black's ego being too big to resist the chance to magic-splain something to her and show off his prowess. What could be more satisfying to him than to impress her, his only real rival in magical skill, with a powerful enchanted object he had created?

"I guess we're done here, then," Ariadne said, turning and making to leave.

"Wait," interrupted Sirius. Ariadne smiled to herself. Men were so predictable. "Fine. I'll do the reading. But swear to me you won't tell anyone about this."

"I promise."

Sirius looked like he needed another drink. Finally, he pulled out his wand, tapped the scrap of parchment, and said, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

The parchment unfolded and transformed. Pencil-thin ink lines intricately crisscrossed every surface. When it was finally complete, Ariadne had to hold back her gasp.

It was a perfect map of the castle she knew so well, as well as every person who lived in it. She watched the tiny dot labeled "James Potter" flit erratically around the common room and a lone Slytherin creep around the dungeons. Sirius indicated McGonagall and Filch's offices and living quarters. Based on their still, unmoving dots, it appeared that both were fast asleep.

"How did you compile so many enchantments into a single object?" asked Ariadne, completely engrossed in the map.

"It's not ordinary parchment. It was enchanted already to be able to contain memory, to hold multiple layers of spells. Potter scammed it off some bloke at the Hog's Head. Then Remus and I encoded the spell that would allow the tracking to update constantly, even when the map is not in use."

"Does it automatically pick up new magical signatures—adapt when new people enter Hogwarts?"

"Aye."

Ariadne couldn't deny that she was impressed. "If only you put this much effort into your classes, Black, you could really turn out to be something."

"Can't give a straight compliment, can you, Morrigan?"

"You're missing the secret compartment behind the portrait of Pliny the Older in the corridor leading to the Potions classroom. Slytherins like to hide cursed objects in there."

Sirius frowned and stared at the map. Ariadne watched his deep, dark eyes below brows furrowed in concentration, his mind working, trying to fix the problem. She looked away before he could catch her staring.

"Anyway, Morrigan, there's your proof. McGonagall and Filch are dreaming sweet dreams. Or whatever horrible atrocity Filch probably dreams about. You have nothing to worry about."

Ariadne fished in her bra for a small, milky white crystal glowing dully in the dim room. "My sensors seem to corroborate that."

"Sensors?"

"Sensing charms set around the portrait hole. They detect if anyone other than a Gryffindor student is approaching the common room. Perhaps not as elegant and precise as your system. But they would have alerted me if McGonagall and Filch were in close proximity."

"Does McGonagall know about this?"

"Not exactly. But even if she asked, they're a security measure. It helps me keep Gryffindors safe."

Sirius' eyes glimmered in the darkened room. "What else do you have hiding in there, Morrigan?"

Ariadne held his gaze until they were interrupted by laughter and noises on the staircase. A giggly and intoxicated Priya entered the dormitory, hanging on the arm of a flushed Lupin. They both stopped in surprise when they saw Ariadne and Sirius, heads together, leaning on Sirius' bed.

"Oooh, sorry! Are we…interrupting?" said Priya.

Ariadne practically jumped away from Sirius as though she'd received an electric shock. Sirius hastily began folding up the map.

"No, we were just…leaving," replied Ariadne, trying her hardest not to appear flustered.

"Oookay," trilled Priya, watching Ariadne with undisguised fascination and glee. Ariadne straightened her clothes and made for the door until she was stopped by a low voice.

"Morrigan…we might have a problem."

Sirius was looking down at the Marauder's Map, where a tiny dot of a Ravenclaw was banging on the door of McGonagall's office. Ariadne slowly pulled the sensor crystal out from her blouse. It was glowing red.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Up to No Good**

Sirius and Ariadne practically flew down the stairs. Hardly anyone noticed their arrival from the boys dormitory, most being too busy availing themselves of more alcohol or enraptured by a loud drunken tale James was regaling the crowd with from the mantel above the fireplace. Ariadne whipped out her wand and started casting silencing charms. Sirius was already at work.

"Focus only on the crowds and the loudest areas," she yelled over the noise. "We don't have time to muffle the entire common room."

"I know, Morrigan," Sirius called back at her.

Ariadne grabbed the wireless set and switched it off to make their jobs considerably easier. The dancing cluster groaned. Sirius had interrupted James' story and was whispering something into his ear, smartly taking advantage of his platform and captive crowd.

"OY," James bellowed to the gathered Gryffindors, much more loudly and effectively than either Ariadne or Sirius would have been able to manage. "McGon'gal and that bastard Filth—I mean, Filch—" he swayed dangerously on the mantelpiece as he shook his fist at the villain—"'r coming to break up our party. To DISGRACE," he hiccupped, "our GRYFFINDOR victory!" The crowd booed. Sirius grabbed James' leg to remind him of the more important focus of his message. "Oh, right, sorry mate. Ok," he straightened himself. "So tha' we don't get in trouble," he paused and spotted Ariadne, "and _espethially_ so our dear prefect Morrigan doesn't get it from McGonagall—a hand for Morrigan, everyone, who finally came to one of our lil' gatherings, and doesn't she look fine? I mean, I don't know what took her so long—"

Ariadne scowled and Sirius hit James on the leg again.

"Oh, right, sorry 'gain, my mate. So, everyone has to get in the staircase or hide under the table unless you wanna get detention."

On a thoroughly drunk crowd of mostly underage Gryffindors, James' words had the effect of producing immediate mass panic. Third-years squealed and dived under couches, while slightly more level-headed older students simply headed upstairs into their dormitories. This did not make Ariadne's task any easier. In order to cast a disillusionment charm, she needed everyone gathered in one place, OR completely out of sight in the dormitories, but not scattered around the room.

She glanced hopelessly at Sirius. He was frowning and ushering a panicked fourth-year couple into the boys' dormitory. "We can just individually disillusion anyone who's left. Or who can't physically make it up into the dormitory," he said, prodding a now unconscious James sprawled on the floor in front of the fireplace with his foot.

With one long sweep of her wand, Ariadne gathered all of the discarded robes, empty butterbeer bottles, cups, and fallen streamers, and other various debris into a corner of the common room and with an additional flick they disappeared, rendered invisible. Sirius was busy disillusioning James and a hysterical fourth year who wouldn't move. They blended seamlessly into the plush red and gold rugs that lined the floor of the common room. Ariadne snuffed out the torches with a jet of water from her wand. That just left…the tower of alcohol. Sirius looked at the mountain of bottles and pitchers apprehensively.

"Leave this to me," said Ariadne.

She took a deep breath and whispered, " _aparente mufare_." The table that had been appropriated as the makeshift bar remained the same. But the cardboard six-packs of butterbeer appeared to glisten, waver like smoke, and then turn into cardboard boxes full of library books and stacks of parchment. The bottles of bloodred Firewhiskey turned the bright orange color of pumpkin juice, and the pitchers of butterbeer turned into innocent golden packages of chocolate frogs.

Sirius walked over to the table and gently touched the transformed contents of the table. The illusion shimmered and wavered but did not break. To anyone entering, it looked like the leftovers from a late-night study session in a pristine, quiet common room, with a few festive Gryffindor banners draped along the back wall.

Except for the people remaining in it, who were clearly dressed for a party. Ariadne snatched a pair of robes from the invisible pile and wrapped herself in it, and hissed at Sirius to button up his shirt. Sirius looked down in surprise at the six inches or so of exposed chest, as if he hadn't realized it was there, and complied.

They heard footsteps approaching the portrait hole. Between the silencing charms and her nervousness, Ariadne couldn't even hear the sound of her own breathing. The portrait swung open and a witch's hat, followed by a tartan dressing robe and a stern face emerged. Professor McGonagall looked around the common room suspiciously, not seeing any signs of the raucous party she had clearly been warned about.

"Good morning, Miss Morrigan, Mr. Black."

"Professor?"

"I was advised that an intolerably loud and after-hours disturbance was taking place in the Gryffindor Common Room. Clearly, it seems the person who reported this was misinformed. Though that does not fully explain why you and Mr. Black are out of your beds at this hour."

"We stayed up a bit too late working on the Transfiguration project, Professor. I suppose we got carried away and didn't realize how late it was," answered Ariadne innocently.

"There's just so much fascinating Transfiguration theory to read, Professor McGonagall," chimed in Sirius. Ariadne sent him daggers out of the corner of her eye. But Professor McGonagall didn't seem to pick up on the fake, overdone sincerity. On the contrary, she seemed rather pleased.

"Well, as admirable as your work ethic is, I suggest that the two of you get some sleep and resume working on the project at a more reasonable hour." She turned around to leave. "And may I remind you, Mr. Black, that school robes are to be worn at all times outside of the dormitories," she added, nodding at his skinny black jeans and rumpled white shirt. "Goodnight—or rather, good morning, I suppose."

"Goodnight, Professor."

She had barely left before James, who had apparently regained consciousness, yelled from the floor, "THA' WAS AMAZING!"


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Aftermath**

In the blurry void of her semi-conscious mind, Ariadne felt something tickle her cheek. With tremendous effort she reached up to brush it off.

It _mewed_ loudly.

Ariadne opened her eyes, and her vision slowly came into focus. When she was finally able to see her surroundings, she gasped.

The Gryffindor common room looked like a war zone. Black robes covered almost every surface and were stuffed into the corners of armchairs. The afternoon sun glinted off bottles strewn everywhere, and on broken glass fragments. The enchanted torches had eventually died out and ashes had collected on the floor. One of the gorgeous Gryffindor banners now sported scorch marks and a missing corner, apparently from an accidental brush with the fireplace. James' Quidditch robes were inexplicably wrapped around the shoulders of a sleeping fifth-year, and his Shooting Star was planted at the foot of the portrait hole, like a flag staking out territory.

Ariadne's cat, Morgan le Fay, was perched on the arm of the sofa, nuzzling her cheek and mewing. On her other side, she was nestled into something very warm and solid, but comfortable.

That something was Sirius Black's chest.

Ariadne scrambled away and over the arm of the sofa as fast as possible. She and Sirius weren't the only ones that didn't make it back to their beds last night. James was passed out over an armchair with an empty bottle at his feet and very minimal clothing remaining on his body. Sophie was curled up, looking almost exactly like a cat, on a fluffy rug by the fireplace. A few other Gryffindors of various years occupied the remaining couches and armchairs. Ariadne didn't see Priya and Lupin and assumed they had taken advantage of the mostly empty dormitory.

Ariadne's sudden movements had woken Sirius. He stirred and stretched luxuriously, pulling the muscles on his bare chest and arms taut. "G'morning, Morrigan," he greeted casually, yawning.

Standing up so suddenly had given Ariadne an immediate, throbbing headache. She cautiously perched on the arm of the sofa and tried to piece together what had happened last night after McGonagall left.

James had woken up. Sirius had grinned at her and said, "Not bad, Morrigan. You make a good accomplice to a Marauder." Almost unable to believe that she had just lied through her teeth to a professor to cover up a wild party she had sworn as a prefect to prevent, Ariadne accepted another drink when Sirius offered it. James' yelling had summoned the rest of the Gryffindors out of hiding, and they hailed Ariadne and Sirius as heroes. Re-energized by the close shave and miraculous save, incredibly, improbably, the party was revived and raged on harder than ever. Someone turned the wireless set back on. Ariadne undid the illusion disguising the Butterbeer and Firewhiskey. She caught Sirius slyly refilling the Firewhiskey by multiplying the small amount that remained.

After that, things got blurrier. She had more drinks—she couldn't remember how many. She remembered dancing with Sophie and Priya. She remembered James stripping down to his underwear on a dare. She remembered Sirius dancing nearby, sometimes with a girl pressed close to his body, other times near Ariadne. She remembered seeing the sweat rolling in beads down his chest through his open shirt and his fingers running through his tousled dark hair. She remembered his hands hovering near her when the crowd crushed them close together, almost as if he wanted to put them around her waist, but stopped himself. She remembered his breath close to her ear and his unbuttoned shirt brushing her red blouse, even though they didn't dance together. She had to snap out of the haze of memories. Why did she remember so much about Sirius and so little about everything else?

The headache hit her with renewed strength. She put her face in her hands and groaned. She sensed Sirius watching with amusement. How did she end up sleeping against him on the sofa? She didn't remember that part.

"Once I get over this hangover, I'm going to kill you," mumbled Ariadne into her hands.

"I may have nudged you through the door, Morrigan, but you're the one who chose to party," answered Sirius, smirking.

Ariadne only just resisted the temptation to hex him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Hangovers and Hexes**

"Maybe if we soaked the frog liver in wine first…"

"The acidity would interfere with its healing properties."

"Butterbeer?"

"Why does everything have to be about alcohol with you?"

Ariadne turned around and shot the Marauders an irritated look. Whispering loudly during Potions study hall was not helping her concentration. Unfortunately, they took this as an invitation to include her in the discussion.

"Psst—Morrigan!"

Ariadne ignored them.

"Ariadne!"

"PrefectAriadneMorriganofGryffindorHouse—"

"James Potter, I swear to God I will earn you a month's worth of detentions cleaning Peeves' spit wads out of suits of armor."

James merely grinned. "Empty threats, Morrigan. I know your true nature now, you party animal." He winked at her.

Ariadne snorted quietly. "I'm impressed you can claim to remember anything about that night, because if _I_ recall correctly, you spent a good portion of it passed out in your underwear on the common room floor."

Remus smiled but James just shrugged. "Must've been a good night, then." Ariadne rolled her eyes.

"Anyway," he continued in a whisper, "we have an important question."

"Let me guess—it has nothing to do with the Hiccoughing Solution we're supposed to be studying."

"Right on, Morrigan."

Ariadne sighed. There probably wasn't any way for her to get around this, considering James' persistence and the presence of all four Marauders to back him up, though Sirius (as usual) looked fairly bored and disinterested in the whole affair.

"What do you think are the best ingredients for a magical hangover cure?"

 _Of course that's what they wanted to know_. Ariadne had never given this particular question much thought, but her thorough knowledge of potion-making and the properties of ingredients meant that it wouldn't be too difficult to figure out.

"Frog liver to filter toxins faster, a little crushed bezoar to counteract alcohol poisoning, murtlap essence to soothe head and body aches, and you'll want a base of charmed morning dew for hydration."

James looked triumphant and was actually writing something down, which was a rare sight. Sirius, however, seemed to take issue with Ariadne's concoction.

"The murtlap essence will react poorly with a bezoar. It'll dissolve the minerals," he said, lazily playing with his quill.

"That's why it'll already be crushed. It's antidote properties are powerful—just a little will have an effect."

"I doubt it will have any effect at all so diluted. Waste of a valuable potion ingredient."

"I didn't say this was something you should brew every weekend. But in an ideal world, it would make the perfect hangover remedy."

James stopped writing and seemed confused, possibly because he fully intended to rely on this remedy every weekend.

Sirius merely looked at her superciliously and continued twirling his quill. Ever since the party…incident, as Ariadne tended to think of it, the Marauders seemed keener than ever to ask her for advice, involve her in their plots, and mine her trove of magical knowledge for their nefarious purposes. At least, James, Peter and Lupin seemed interested in doing so. Sirius remained as aloof as ever. He didn't seem to particularly mind the Marauders sitting behind Ariadne in every class and bothering her, but then again, exhibiting resistance to this would have been to admit he cared, and that was one thing Sirius Black rarely did.

Ariadne left Potions study hall after staying late to ask the professor some questions, and turned a corner in the dungeons passageways to find a Slytherin fifth-year who looked like he'd been hit by a combination of bat-bogey hex and undiluted bubotuber pus writhing in a corner. James and Sirius looked on and laughed while Peter egged them on.

She instinctively whipped out her wand and went into full prefect mode. "Lay off him, you two."

Sirius' raised his eyebrows and the look in his eyes was clearly challenging her. Ariadne had told off the Marauder's for their wrongdoing many times before, but now that she and Sirius had collaborated to break the rules, something was different.

Ariadne wasn't going to let that stop her from acting as a prefect, obviously.

"Wands down, Potter, Black. Please don't make me have to write up my third incident report for you this month."

James pocketed his wand and raised his hands in surrender, but Sirius twitched his and added a couple more bats to the Slytherin's face, who groaned.

"Miss Morrigan, I think you've misunderstood. This is purely an instructional exercise. We were just teaching Mervon here a little history lesson about what happens to wizards who associate with pathetic Death Eater scum. I'm sure Professor Binns would approve."

"Tell it to McGonagall."

"I think if she knew the full extent of what Mervon has been up to, even dear Minerva would be sympathetic to our cause."

"Don't make me hex you, Black."

Sirius sighed and finally raised his hands in surrender. Ariadne performed the counter-jinx to relieve Mervon Yaxley of his bat bogies, and she was recommending that he visit the hospital wing for a cure for his boils when he turned and hissed at Sirius and James, "Your days are numbered, you Mudblood-loving filth."

In an instant he was pinned to the dungeon walls by the neck of his robes. Ariadne advanced on Mervon with her wand raised, and in a deadly cool voice, warned him, "Say that word again, Yaxley, and you'll have more to worry about than a few bat-bogeys."

She released him and he dropped to the ground. Ariadne pocketed her wand and swept around the corner of the hallway without another word.

 **A/N: Hi lovelies! Sorry for the delayed updates this weekend- still working out this fanfic thing and my writing schedule. My goal is still to update every weekday—I'll try my best, and hopefully my summer job will continue to be flexible so I have time to write—but I'll probably only update once over the weekend because weekends are for getting out of the house! Thanks for all the love on this story (I can't believe 27 people actually want to read my this ?!) and keep the reviews coming! I want to hear from you guys.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Power and Position**

Ariadne was cornered. The Marauders had closed in and surrounded her at the corner table in the common room where she had set up her vast array of books for studying. Though she had vanished after attacking Yaxley before James and Sirius could say anything or even react, she couldn't avoid them forever.

"Morrigan, that was wicked."

"It was so satisfying to see that prick get what he deserves."

Ariadne sighed and shut the book she was reading. "I shouldn't have done that. I let my feelings get the best of me."

"You mean your fairly accurate intuition that Mervon Yaxley is a worthless Erumpet dropping that doesn't deserve to even lick the floors of Hogwarts?" asked Sirius sardonically.

"I'm a prefect. I'm supposed to remain neutral in these kinds of conflicts and act as a mediator to defuse them. It's a flagrant abuse of my power and position to attack a student."

"I would hardly call that an attack."

"You just gave him a good scaring right when he needed it."

"Yaxley and his gang of junior Death Eaters have gotten bolder than ever in the last months."

These three statements came from Sirius, James, and Lupin respectively. Ariadne started with the latter.

"How long has this been going on?"

"What, exactly?" asked Sirius. "The fights? The Muggleborn baiting? The proclamations of eternal loyalty to You-Know-Who?"

"Miralda Etheridge has had the m-word graffitied on her desk in Charms twice."

"I didn't realize supporters of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named were showing themselves so openly. At least not inside Hogwarts."

"They've gotten braver since the Sylvester murders," said Lupin grimly. The Sylvesters were a powerful couple high up in the Ministry of Magic who had pushed for more aggressive measures against the growing wave of chaos and anarchy fueled by Voldemort. Ariadne remembered the half-page headlines on _The Daily Prophet_ six months ago. They were found dead in their beds at home.

"Their little gangs swagger around the hallways as if Voldy himself were backing them up," said Sirius derisively.

Ariadne sighed again. She had been so wholly occupied by studying for her N.E.W.T.s that she had barely noticed what else was going on inside the castle.

"Have you spoken to the administration about this? What was their response?"

James and Sirius actually laughed and Remus shook his head. "You think the profs are going to take on the Yaxleys?" asked Sirius.

Ariadne bit her lip. "I know the Yaxleys are a powerful old wizarding family…"

"They have half the Ministry of Magic in their pockets, and an insider on the Wizengamot and the school board. No one messes with them," said Sirius.

"Except us," said James, grinning and giving Sirius a self-congratulatory high-five.

"So the Hogwarts staff may not agree, but they can't openly take a stance against You-Know-Who's followers for fear of retaliation against them and their families," said Ariadne.

"Exactly," said Lupin. "The Yaxleys have long had family members high up in Magical Law Enforcement. They can easily trump up a charge to get anyone who opposes them thrown in Azkaban."

"Nepotistic talentless oafs," muttered Sirius.

"Not to mention that conservative factions in the Ministry have started politicizing dark magic and anti-Muggle hysteria and codifying it into legislation," added Ariadne.

This statement drew somewhat blank looks from the Marauders.

"Have you not been paying attention to the news lately?"

"The only papers and magazines that Sirius gets delivered are ones with half-naked witches," sniggered James.

"And the only one that _you_ read is _Which Broomstick_ ," retorted Sirius.

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "Well, I suppose this has all been happening unbeknownst to you three, but the Statutes on Restricted and Forbidden Spells have been increasingly liberalized to make certain kinds of Dark magic legal. Meanwhile, discriminatory measures against half-blood and Muggle-born wizards have been passed, forcing them to jump through all kinds of hoops to prove wizarding ancestry or magical ability. And if anyone tries to protest this, the conservative pure-blood factions claim they're being 'silenced' and not allowed to 'express their political views.' Disciplining thugs like Yaxley will be taken as Hogwarts being partisan against Slytherins and purebloods."

'That's ridiculous. Being pro-pureblood isn't an ideology, it's fanaticism," said Sirius derisively.

"I agree, but as a prefect, I'm not supposed to take sides."

Sirius' eyes glimmered. "Then don't be a prefect."

"Pardon?"

"It's just like when you came to the party. For once, don't be a prefect with all these duties and responsibilities and rules you have to follow. Just let yourself be a regular Gryffindor."

"So I can be like that?" Ariadne gestured to a group of Gryffindors that were trying to persuade Stebbins to put a Fizzing Whizbee up his nose to see what would happen.

Sirius leaned back in his chair. "I know you think playing by the rules and sucking up to McGonagall is the only way to get anything done in this castle, but trust me, we've found some shortcuts and much more efficient ways of doing things, even if they aren't always one-hundred percent…Kosher." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "The Marauders don't just play pranks and throw parties, you know."

Ariadne didn't know how to respond. At that moment, Priya swooped in to grab Lupin for dinner (they had been inseparable since the party) and James ran off to yell at Stebbins for getting into his stash of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum (the next item he decided to try inhaling through his nose), leaving Ariadne and Sirius alone at the table.

 **A/N: After promising you all daily updates, I barely made this one D: try to be patient with me, I'm figuring out the next plot arc and deciding where the story should go. Let me know if you like this new direction (or if I should stick to romance and fluffy stuff?) -Andromeda**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Family**

"So, not a fan of the m-word, I see," said Sirius.

"I don't have patience for bigots," replied Ariadne, returning to her studying. Sirius, apparently, had different plans for her.

"Does that have anything to do with…your personal background?" he probed.

"I'm not Muggle-born, if that's what you're asking," answered Ariadne.

"Then what are you?"

"Half."

"Half-blood?"

"Half…everything. Half-wizard, half-Muggle; half-Irish, half-Bengali."

"Sounds like there's an interesting story behind that. Which is your Muggle side, and which is magical?"

"You're asking a lot of questions today."

Sirius' eyes did that thing again where they glimmered inscrutably in the firelight. "I'm in an inquisitive mood. Indulge me," he said.

"Will you go away if I do?"

"I'm not making deals with you anymore, Morrigan. I've learned my lesson."

Ariadne sighed for the umpteenth time that evening. "My dad—the Irish side—comes from a long line of pureblood Ravenclaws. My mom is a Muggle; she came to the U.K. decades ago and ran into my dad talking to ravens one day in the park."

"You don't really strike me as a Ravenclaw," said Sirius.

Ariadne looked at him over her stack of textbooks in disbelief. "Do you know what Morrigan means?"

"It's your name—Irish, obviously."

"Morrigan is the Irish phantom queen. She was a powerful banshee in mythological times. The Muggles know her a goddess of war and death." Ariadne paused. "Her preferred form was a crow or raven."

She shut the heavy book she had open. "My family is literally descended from a raven goddess. I was never supposed to be a Gryffindor."

"Then I suppose that's something we have in common," said Sirius quietly.

The statement seemed to grow heavier as it hung in the air between them. Ariadne realized how trivial her complaints about her family must have seemed.

"How did your parents react when they found out how you were sorted?" Ariadne asked more gently.

"Don't know," said Sirius shortly. "Never went back home to find out." Something seemed to have darkened in his expression, like night falling over his face.

"Why do you think I wouldn't be a good Ravenclaw?" asked Ariadne, changing the subject, and also asking something that had irked her since he first mentioned it.

"I guess you can't see it, Morrigan, but there's obviously a rebellious streak in you that's so very Gryffindor," said Sirius, smirking. "Lying to McGonagall? Partying into the early morning? Pinning Yaxley to the wall? These aren't things a good, studious Ravenclaw girl would do."

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "So you think you can turn a 'good girl' bad. Your ego never fails to amaze, Black. Also, you're a walking cliché."

"Ah, but that was exactly my purpose in getting you to come to that party. And it worked."

Ariadne tried not to let the annoyance show on her face. "You _are_ a Gryffindor, Black, no question about it."

The light seemed to return to Sirius' face. "Why, thank you, Morrigan."

"I didn't necessarily mean that as a compliment."

"I'll take what I can get."

 **A/N: So I know this update is super short, but I promise the next chapter is going to be longer and really good! –Andromeda**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Joyride**

Ariadne was returning to the castle after a session observing her brood of nifflers for her Care of Magical Creatures homework when she felt a _whoosh_ ruffle her hair, followed by a wild whooping. She looked up in time to see a streak of red and gold, topped with some untidy jet-black hair, race past her toward the Quidditch pitch. It looped back around and James Potter yelled at her, "Oy Morrigan! Come to the Quidditch practice! Priya is looking for you."

Normally, Ariadne would have wondered what would draw Priya to a Gryffindor Quidditch practice in the middle of a chilly autumn evening, but she could figure it out. James was Captain of the Quidditch team, Lupin went to watch the practice, and Priya tagged along, despite having no interest in Quidditch whatsoever.

Ariadne had completed her observations early, so she figured she could spare a few moments to catch up with Priya. Trekking to the Quidditch pitch, she found not only Lupin and Priya sprawled out in what remained of the late afternoon sun, but Sirius too.

Priya jumped up from her comfortable-looking spot across Remus' lap. "Ari! I've been trying to find you. Do you have the book for Vector's class? Can I borrow it?"

"Sure, Priya. Do you happen to have the star chart you borrowed from me last week?"

Priya smacked her forehead. "Ugh, no, I completely forgot it! But I can run back to the castle to get it. It'll only take a minute."

Lupin jumped up. "I'll come with you."

Ariadne settled down in the stands to wait. Sirius caught her eye. "It's going to take them more than a minute, isn't it?" she said.

"Correct, Morrigan," he said, lounging in the grass with his arms behind his head. "You really are a perceptive witch."

"You really are a sarcastic git," she replied.

"Thank you."

"Still not a compliment."

"Still going to take it as one."

They watched in silence as James flailed his arms at the Gryffindor Beaters zooming around the pitch, apparently trying to guide them through some kind of maneuver. He was not successful. One of the Beaters, distracted by the complicated loop he was supposed to be performing, failed to see the Bludger coming right for him and took a direct hit to the head. He managed to stumble to the ground before keeling over. James ran onto the pitch to catch him and Sirius and Ariadne followed to help.

"He needs hospital wing, stat," said Ariadne, frowning and administering a spell to reduce his pain and dizziness.

James helped the dazed Beater up supported him on his shoulders. "I'll take him to ol' Pomfrey. She'll patch him up. Can you guys watch our gear?"

James and the Beater loped off, looking like a clumsy four-legged beast draped in scarlet and gold Quidditch robes.

Ariadne seated herself on the stands again to wait, but Sirius was eyeing James' brand-new Shooting Star 7 with a gleam in his eye. Ariadne recognized that look, and she did not like it.

"What do you say to taking her for a little spin, Morrigan?" he said, indicating the broom, and wearing a mischievous smile.

"Do you have a death wish, Black? Potter loves that broom almost as much as he loves himself. He'd kill us."

"Nah, he wouldn't kill us. Might chase us around the pitch a bit threatening to curse us, but that's nothing new. Besides, he owes me for hooking up with Catherine Whipple."

"I suppose this might not be as evident to you and Potter as it is to me, but women aren't broomsticks."

"When did I say that?"

"You just suggested trading a sexual encounter with a woman for a ride on a broomstick."

"They're not entirely different experiences, to be honest."

Ariadne raised an eyebrow. "So are all women objects to 'take for a spin' and toss aside when you're done, or just the ones you've slept with?"

"You're reading too much into this, Morrigan," Sirius said, now engrossed in examining the Shooting Star's streamlined tail.

"Am I? Only wondering if my Transfiguration partner sees me as at all capable of performing advanced magic, or just good for a shag."

"Well, I obviously don't think of _you_ that way," answered Sirius, looking somewhat taken aback.

"And why not? Am I not a girl, just like Catherine Whipple?"

"Because—well—" Sirius almost looked flustered. "Because you're, you know, decent enough at magic, responsible, clever and all that—"

"But too smart to be hookup material?"

"I didn't say—the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive—"

Ariadne had to suppress her amusement at watching Sirius cool-as-ice Black stumble over his thoughts like the concussed Beater making his way off the Quidditch pitch. Sirius noticed the smile quivering at the corner of her lips and threw up his hands. "Now you're just taking the piss, Morrigan."

"Not entirely. I'm educating you out of your misogyny."

"All right, point taken. Witches are not broomsticks. You might have to break the news to James, though. I'm not sure he can tell the difference, he likes them both too much."

"I'll work on him later," answered Ariadne.

"Anyway," said Sirius, "do you want to take this beauty on a quick joyride, or not?" He patted the gleaming mahogany handle of the Shooting Star.

Ariadne hesitated. She had heard the Shooting Star 7 rode like a dream, smooth as velvet and easy to fly. It was their very latest and most luxurious model, and of course, the Potters bought it for James as soon as it came out. When would she next get the chance to even touch a broom like that?

"C'mon, Morrigan. I know you're not the type to miss out on a good opportunity when you see one," persuaded Sirius in his low, silky voice, almost…seductively.

"Get on," said Ariadne, walking over and tying up her hair.

"Pardon?"

"You're flying, I'll take shotgun. Get on."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: A Little Risk**

The chilly wind whipped through Ariadne's hair, and she couldn't help but feel a tiny bit grateful for the warmth of Sirius' body close to hers. She had been stubborn enough about even holding onto his waist ("Just grab on, Morrigan, even you aren't talented enough to stick to a flying broomstick all by yourself") but he was a good flier, and now she felt better about her impulsive decision.

 _And Merlin, does this thing fly_ , she thought to herself as they hugged the edge of the lake, sparkling deep blue in the late afternoon sunlight. The Shooting Star glided through the air and cut through blustery winds like butter; they were coasting as smoothly as if they were moving through still water, and not a single bump or shudder had interrupted their ride.

Sirius coasted low over the lake and Ariadne actually reached down to let her fingertips skim the freezing water. With the sun beginning to set behind the castle, silhouetting it black against a golden-pink sky, the entire scene seemed too idyllic to even be real.

Finally, Sirius muttered to himself, "All right, let's see what this baby can do," and they soon began to rise higher and higher above the lake.

"What exactly do you think you're doing, Black?" yelled Ariadne over the rush of the wind. Sirius just turned his head and winked at her. They were now level with some of the highest towers of the castle.

And then they dived.

Ariadne felt her stomach leave her body. They were plummeting towards the lake at an almost impossible angle, yet the broom kept them stable and the ride smooth. The surface of the water was getting closer and closer—20 feet, 15 feet—and seemingly just before they were going to crash into the water, Sirius pulled up steeply and they continued cruising through the air.

Sirius made a few well-practiced loops before finally returning to the Quidditch pitch. The Shooting Star glided to the ground and they touched down without a tremor.

Sirius was laughing. Ariadne was beside herself.

"So was your plan to drown us both before James could get a chance to try and kill us? What the hell were you playing at?"

"Morrigan, it's just a bit of fun," said Sirius, running his fingers through his ruffled hair. "What's life without a little risk?"

"Considerably safer."

"You mean more boring."

"I mean less certifiably insane."

"You can't deny she took that dive like a gem, though."

Ariadne crossed her arms. She couldn't disagree. Sirius grinned at her. "I knew you'd like it. If you liked how she rode, I'll have to take you on my flying motorbike sometime."

Ariadne sighed. "Of course you have a flying motorbike."

It was only then that she noticed Priya and Lupin walking towards them from the stands. They would have witnessed the landing of their stolen.

"Remus, old friend," said Sirius gallantly, clapping Lupin on the shoulder. "How about we keep this," he gestured to James' Shooting Star, gleaming in the light of the sunset, "just between us?"

"And Priya," added Ariadne.

"And Sophie, too, I guess," said Priya, pointing to their friend who was bouncing her way over.

Sirius looked exasperated. "Okay—can we just not mention this to James?"

"What are we not telling James?" asked Sophie, having just arrived, breathless.

"Don't worry about it, Soph," reassured Ariadne.

"If we're sure I don't need to place Unbreakable Oaths on you all to keep you from snitching—pun fully intended-" said Sirius, eyeing Sophie distrustfully, "then I'll be putting this back exactly where Potter left it."

As he walked off, Priya gave Ariadne a meaningful look, while Sophie looked innocently curious. "So, Ariadne, I found the star chart, but I'm still kind of confused about, erm, Mercury's orbit. Do you think you could explain it to me?"

"Of course, Priya. Maybe we should go to the Astronomy tower, it'll be night soon anyway—"

"Let's go to the dormitory," interrupted Priya, grabbing her arm and giving Sophie a look. She more or less began dragging Ariadne off the pitch while Lupin looked on in bemusement.

"Bye, Remus!" said Sophie cheerfully. "We're just going to look at Mercury's orbit in the girls' dormitory!"

Remus looked confused but waved to them anyway. As soon as they were out of earshot, Priya spun Ariadne around and grabbed her shoulders.

"Ari, what in the name of Merlin is going on?"

 **A/N: Another shorty but I'm just trying to get something written every day. Your reviews give me life and keep me going 3 -Andromeda**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Secrets**

"What do you mean?" said Ariadne, trying and not really succeeding at playing innocent.

"I just saw you get off a broom after a secret joyride with Sirius Black. Explain."

" _James Potter's_ broom," piped up Sophie. "How did you get him to let you fly it, by the way?"

Ariadne ignored Sophie for the time being. "What's there to explain? He asked if I wanted to see how it flies, and Potter wasn't around, and I…said okay."

"So you just held onto Sirius Black and flew off into the sunset together."

"I let him fly because I'm not that great at flying."

"What's going on with you? Since when do you party all night and lie to McGonagall and steal broomsticks and…" she took a deep breath, "hang out with Sirius Black and the Marauders?"

"And sleep snuggled up on Sirius' chest!" added Sophie happily.

Priya turned to her. "WHAT?"

Ariadne hastily tried to explain. "I don't really remember what happened, it was the night of the party and I guess I was drunk and fell asleep on the couch in the common room…next to him…"

"You were upstairs, so you didn't see it," Sophie informed Priya.

Priya turned to Ariadne with a wordlessly open mouth.

Ariadne felt a bit stung. "You say all of these things as if they were so terrible. And I don't think you of all people can criticize me for suddenly hanging out with the Marauders a lot more."

To her surprise, Priya broke into a huge smile. "No, silly! I'm not criticizing you! This is AMAZING! I'm so glad you finally got the stick out of your arse and are starting to have some fun at Hogwarts."

"I don't know if I should be relieved, or offended by the 'stick up my arse' comment," replied Ariadne, glad her friend was being honest with her (if brutally so.)

"Oh, Ari, you know what I mean. Always worrying about school and your grades, trying to be the most perfect prefect, laser-focused on your academics but never having time to just enjoy being young. And so fixated on the rules. If you told me a month ago that Ariadne Morrigan would be dating Sirius Black, I'd have told you to go get the anti-jinx to your Confundus spell."

"Whoa whoa. Slow down, Priya. Sirius Black. And I. Are Not. Dating."

Priya raised her eyebrow. "Sure you're not."

Ariadne sighed. "Don't be ridiculous, Priya. Me? Dating _Black?_ How could you even seriously entertain that idea?"

"Who's being ridiculous? Sneaking off on Potter's broom? Holing up in his dormitory during the party? Sleeping with him on the couch? I saw how he was looking at you that night. Honestly, Ariadne, I know you're tons smarter than me, but do you really think I'm that dumb?"

"It's not a question of being dumb," said Ariadne in exasperation. "You're just completely misinterpreting those events."

"Am I really? Because it looks to me like you two are spending an awful lot of time together."

Ariadne sighed. "He brought me up to the dormitory to show off this…thing to try to prove he's as good at magic as I am. You know what his ego is like. And just now, with Potter's broom…I guess I just wanted to see what it was like. It's supposed to be an amazing broom—I'll never get that close to a Shooting Star 7 again for the rest of my life."

"So he took you up to his bedroom to show you his 'thing' and then took you for a ride on a broomstick," said Priya, smirking.

Ariadne frowned. "You're making a mountain out of a gnome hill. Besides, dating generally involves two people who like each other. However, as you're well-informed, I cannot stand Sirius Black, and I'm fairly sure I'm not his favorite person, either."

"I'm pretty sure you were his favorite person to stare at the night of the party, judging by how he couldn't keep his eyes off you."

"You're confusing lust with love, dear."

"I mean, if it's a thing about wanting to keep it secret and on the down-low, you can trust me with that information, Ariadne."

"Like the way I trusted you with the answers to the practice Charms exam and the Yule Ball's secret theme?"

Priya waved her hand as if to brush off the accusation. "Those are silly, unimportant things. You can trust me with stuff that matters."

"Well, Priya, I swear to you on our friendship that Black and I are not secretly dating," said Ariadne.

Priya didn't seem to be listening. "I have to say, I've been busy with spending more time with Remus and everything so we didn't really get to talk, but I've been dying to know…does he live up to his reputation?"

"What reputation? If you're referring to his arrogance, recklessness, and total disregard for life and limb, then yes."

"No, Ari, I mean his _reputation_. His amorous skills. The reason why every girl from fourth to seventh year dreams of just a few minutes with him in a broom cupboard. His sexual prowess."

Sophie's eyes got wide. "Marjorie said that when Catherine Whipple hooked up with him…"

Ariadne's sincere expression quickly turned into annoyance. "Priya. We haven't slept together." She internally shuddered at the very thought.

Both Sophie and Priya's faces fell.

"Oh. Well I guess you really were telling the truth, Ariadne. You and Sirius Black aren't dating."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: In or Out**

Ariadne glanced over the top of her 18-inch roll of parchment, almost entirely covered in her tidy, compact handwriting. Something very suspicious was occurring in the opposite corner of the common room.

That something suspicious was the presence of all four Marauders huddled in a corner, speaking in low tones. There were three suspicious things about this. One, that all four of them were in the same place at the same time. While they were a close-knit group, they also had a very busy calendar of socializing, womanizing, and plotting the overthrow of the Hogwarts administration, which meant that they were often off separately or in pairs (usually, James and Sirius together, Remus on his own, and Peter tagging along with either one.) Two, they were huddled in a corner rather than enjoying the center of attention, as they usually were. Three, they were speaking in hushed voices instead of loudly joking, heckling each other, or announcing another successful prank to the entire Gryffindor House.

Ariadne's prefect senses were buzzing. They were up to something.

She really needed to finish this essay for History of Magic, however. She was now poring over it for the fourth time to magically correct any punctuation or grammatical errors. But she constantly felt the urge to look up to monitor the Marauders and try to figure out what they were planning. After the third such glance, the Marauders must have realized they were being watched, because Ariadne looked up to see Sirius Black staring straight back at her with those deep, dark eyes.

Ariadne tried not to look guilty. She put down her essay and started rummaging for the Arithmancy book she was supposed to be reading. But she could feel Sirius still gazing at her, and she finally shot him alook that, if looks could speak, said _what do you want?_ rather aggressively. He made the tiniest "come hither" gesture with his fingers. Ariadne ignored him. He rolled his eyes and finally, with a flick of his wand, sent her History of Magic essay flying across the common room and into his hands.

Ariadne couldn't believe she was being manipulated by something as juvenile as stolen homework. She tried to summon her parchment back, but Sirius counteracted the spell with another flick, now apparently engrossed in reading the essay.

Ariadne strode over to their huddle with her arms crossed and silently held out her hand. James and Remus seemed surprised but somewhat pleased to see her.

"Oh hey, Ariadne, we were just talking about you," greeted James blithely.

Ariadne arched an eyebrow so severely she imagined she probably looked like McGonagall about to deliver James with a week's detention. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, about how clever you are with magic and stuff, and how you didn't look half-bad in Charms yesterday, with your hair down and all—"

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "I appreciate the validation of my physical attractiveness through the eyes of a man, which you seem to think I need" ("No prob!" answered James obliviously) "now, I believe Black has something of mine, which he is going to return to me promptly, given that I did not grant him permission to take it, much less read it."

Sirius completely ignored her, still running his eyes down the parchment. "Your introduction has some problems, Morrigan…the fourth Goblin rebellion of the 18th century was started because of internal tensions within goblin self-government, not economic factors. Third-years know that."

"That's one competing interpretation of the historical events," answered Ariadne. "A weak interpretation, I might add."

"It's a simple fact."

"Contrary to what you might believe, Black, your way of viewing the world isn't the only one that exists."

"It's generally the best one, though."

Ariadne didn't particularly feel like fighting this fight, nor did she think it would accomplish anything. But since Sirius was distracted, she took the opportunity to make a grab for her essay with another summoning charm. The parchment jerked towards her, but Sirius managed to hold onto the end of it with the tips of his fingers before it got away. _His reflexes are decent_ , thought Ariadne. James must have been teaching him.

"Ah ah ah…we're not done with you yet, Morrigan."

"What do you want, Black?" said Ariadne, getting impatient.

"Hey, we're still here, too," complained James.

Sirius leaned back in his chair and spread his legs out comfortably. "Okay James, I'll let you explain."

"All right, Morrigan, so given that you're so good at—spells, and whatnot—by the way, what you did to Yaxley was brilliant, don't know if I've told you that yet—"

"You might have mentioned it a few times," said Ariadne dryly.

"Right—anyway, we have something of a plan to get back at Yaxley for being a downright git—"

"A bully and a bigot," added Remus.

"The lowliest of wizard scum," growled Sirius.

"And we could use your help," finished James. He paused for a moment as if trying to remember whether he had forgotten anything important, and added, "Oh, and we found out about Yaxley's secret junior Death Eater club where they plan ways to harass and intimidate Muggle-borns."

Ariadne immediately tensed up. Sirius seemed to sense her distressed and angry reaction, because he turned to her and said, "You heard correctly, Morrigan. Yaxley isn't acting alone. He's organized, and he's recruited other Hogwarts students to help him carry out his dirty work."

"How did you find out about this?"

"We got a tip from a Hufflepuff who heard rumors about the meetings. We have our own ways of confirming those rumors.

"Have you—"

"Reported this to a teacher?" Sirius finished, smirking. "Morrigan, we've been over this. The professors can't and won't do anything. They're too scared of the Yaxleys."

Ariadne looked to Remus for confirmation. He nodded.

"What exactly are you planning?"

"That information," said Sirius in low voice, "is reserved for the Marauders and others whom they select to be a part of this covert…operation." He gave Ariadne a dead-serious look. "Secrecy is essential. We can't have anyone—including the Hogwarts professors—knowing what we're about to do. If they tip off Yaxley or one of his cronies—and he has many, more than you'd like to think—it will blow our one opportunity to take him down. Also, our plan is likely to involve breaking more rules than you've ever imagined in your wildest dreams."

"I don't dream about breaking rules," said Ariadne.

"Of course not," said Sirius, eyes glittering, as if briefly thinking about what else she dreamed about. He resumed his explanation, now with a note of finality. "So, we need to know that you're one-hundred percent committed to this before we tell you any more."

"And why does 'top-marks-in-our-year' Sirius Black need me?" asked Ariadne suspiciously.

Sirius sighed. "While James, Remus and I are more than…capable" (Peter emitted a squawk of protest), "there are a few things…advanced potion-making, complicated enchantments…that we could use another pair of eyes on."

Ariadne couldn't suppress her satisfied smirk. "You need help with a Polyjuice Potion," she said, quietly but triumphantly. Sirius had given her crap about her Polyjuice Potion for years, but she knew hers was superior.

"Keep it down, Morrigan," hissed Sirius, annoyed. "And when did I say anything about Polyjuice Potion?"

"You're planning to infiltrate this secret meeting, and you need to disguise yourself. Plus, I know your Polyjuice Potion is rubbish."

Sirius' eyes simmered with irritation. "We'll discuss the details later. What we need to know now is, are you in, or not?"

Ariadne bit her lip. "So this is why my History of Magic essay is being held ransom? To persuade me to take part in your plot?"

"Precisely."

Normally, Ariadne would have needed more time with a decision like this. Time to sleep on it, think it over, weigh the benefits and risks. The Marauders were clearly planning something big, and dangerous. Going up against powerful wizards like the Yaxleys, without the authorization or protection of fully-qualified Hogwarts teachers, was not a decision to be made lightly. They could get caught and punished by Hogwarts professors, and on the other hand (perhaps worse) targeted by Yaxley and his thugs.

But then an image flashed in her mind: Yaxley's smug, hateful face as he spat the word "Mudblood-lovers."

"I'm in."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: The Plan**

"Lupin, move over. You're squishing my right arm," complained James.

Remus sighed and attempted to shift over, but the table in the small, empty classroom was too small for him to do much without pushing Sirius off his seat.

"It's cramped, James, handle it," said Sirius in his bored voice.

"This is my Snitch-catching arm," James half-complained, half-bragged, attempting to pull out the arm and flex it (which was impossible due to the limited space.) "Gonna need it in top condition for the match Saturday."

"If not to catch the Snitch, then to hold the Firewhiskey that will drown your disappointment at losing against Grindylow-face Bolger," goaded Sirius.

"Bolger won't know what hit him when we're through with him," retorted James. "Well, he will know about the Bludgers from my Spinski maneuver. But figuratively speaking."

"Your grasp of metaphor grows stronger every day," said Sirius wryly.

"Six years of magical education at work, my friend," replied James, grinning.

Lupin cleared his throat to get them back on topic. Ariadne was a bit more direct. "If you two are finished flirting with each other…"

Sirius' smirk disappeared and he put on an appearance of seriousness.

"Right. We are gathered here on this lovely Thursday evening" (cold rain was lashing the single small, circular window in the tiny room) "to go over the details of our plan to put an end to Yaxley's Society for Junior Death Eaters."

"Is that its new official name?" sniggered James.

Sirius chose to ignore this. "We're trying to accomplish a number of things here. One, to gather intel on the size, extent, and abilities of Yaxley's…organization, and the identities of all its members. Two, to plant false information about a location and time at which they could potentially 'get at' Muggle-borns and their allies, and to tempt them to take the bait. And three, after luring them into this trap, to put an end to their disgusting activities and burgeoning Death Eater careers, once and for all."

"In order to do this, our plan will have multiple steps. We'll need to infiltrate one of these meetings, gather the information we need, potentially infiltrate a second meeting in order to plant the false information, then set the trap, and spring it." He paused. "Any questions so far?"

"I hope you have more details to give us than that," said Ariadne.

Sirius narrowed his eyes in annoyance. "We're getting there, Morrigan. Patience, love."

"Not your love."

Sirius ignored that remark as well. "James, Remus and Peter, you're in charge of getting samples from our two targets—" he gave them a significant look "—you know who they are. And work out a way to incapacitate target one during the meeting. Pay attention to the details. Learn his schedule and find out where he'll be just prior to the meeting. This isn't some prank we'll get detention for, we need this to be watertight."

He turned to Ariadne. "And that leaves the Polyjuice Potion to you and me, love."

Ariadne was thrilled.

 **A/N: I know I've been super bad and skipped updating a few days last week** **Please accept this admittedly inadequate peace offering until I'm able to finish the next chapter and actually make it good. Love you all! -A**


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: Dueling**

"Tell me who the two 'targets' are."

"That's need-to-know information, Morrigan," said Sirius, who was sprawled across the couch in the common room, amusing himself by transfiguring his notes into a paper cat that hissed at the live mouse they were working with, and then back into plain parchment.

"You're just being opaque on purpose to annoy me."

"The fewer people that know the details of the plan, the lower the risk of us getting ratted out."

"You don't think I'd actually tell anyone, do you?"

"Perhaps not intentionally. But Yaxley is already wary of you, after that stunt you pulled in the dungeons. If he thinks you have information, he could threaten you to get you to spill. Or, slip a little Veritaserum into your pumpkin juice."

"You're being dramatic. This isn't a top-secret mission from the Department of Mysteries. We're 17."

"Am I?" said Sirius, now idly folding the parchment into a fan with his wand. "This isn't some school project, Ariadne. We're not following a teacher's instructions, and they won't be there to rescue you like they usually are. We're taking on followers of You-Know-Who who are trying to take over Hogwarts."

If Ariadne was surprised by the use of her first name, she didn't let on. Sirius was right that this wasn't the usual prank to take the mickey out of someone the Marauders didn't like or make a scene for attention. He was taking this seriously.

"Regardless, you wanted me to be 'one-hundred percent committed' to this…thing. How can I be all in if you won't even tell me all the details of the plan?"

"Just trust me."

"I don't."

Sirius sat up from his slouched position across the couch. "It does seem like you trust very few people and very little."

"I don't trust many people because they usually can't get something done as well as I can."

"And yet, here we are," said Sirius, gesturing to the stacks of notes, piles of books and scattered diagrams that currently comprised their Transfiguration project.

"Don't labor under any delusions, Black. I was forced into working with you."

"It's a privilege many would covet, love."

Ariadne's patience was rapidly disappearing. She and Sirius had been working on the project (or in his case, "working") for over two hours and hadn't accomplished nearly as much as she expected. That added to his refusal to tell her the names of the two Yaxley followers they were planning to impersonate had her feeling more and more frustrated with the fact that she'd been saddled with him for not one, but two "projects."

"Oh really? What part do you think they'd like the most? The insufferably arrogant attitude? Failure to do even half the reading I asked you to do? Or maybe the last half-hour you've wasted fooling around with that piece of parchment?"

"Relax, Morrigan. We don't need to stress about all this theory and essays. I'll ace the practical portion of the project, and that'll give us a good enough grade on it overall."

"You mean, _I'll_ do all the work on the theoretical essay, and you'll show up on the day of the exam and half-ass some spells."

"Morrigan, when have I ever half-assed anything?"

"The transmogrification spell you just tried."

"That was a perfectly adequate spell."

"You were supposed to make the mouse's ears bigger, not turn the whole thing pink."

"But I did succeed in changing something."

"If you had just _read_ what I _told_ you to read," Ariadne said, literally pressing a thick volume titled _Human and Animal Transmogrification: An Advanced Guide_ into his chest, "you would know that transmogrifying mammals is significantly more complicated than transmogrifying reptiles and birds. You can't just do the same thing you did to make the tortoise shell change its patterns."

Sirius seemed far less interested in the book itself than in the proximity of Ariadne's hands to his body. She pushed the book into him harder before letting go. "You think you can just show up without any preparation and perform better than someone who has studied and practiced. That's not how it works," she said heatedly.

"I promise I can… _perform_ up to your standards, Morrigan," he said, with the just the slightest hint of silky emphasis on "perform."

Ariadne just stared at him in disbelief. She was reprimanding him and he seemed to be getting turned on by it. Typical Marauder.

"Read chapters 12 and 13," said Ariadne firmly, picking up the book, which he had set aside, "and write up an essay that explains the properties and considerations of transmogrifying small mammals. By tomorrow. And _then_ we'll see how well you perform the transmogrification."

"Alternatively, you could read me the parts you think are important, I'll practice a few times on Nibbles here," he held up the squirming field mouse by its tail, "and then I'll blow McGonagall away during the practical with my vastly improved skills."

Ariadne slapped the book into his lap with surprising force. "Read. Write. And save your bullshit for someone who's buying, because I'm not," she said icily.

She later couldn't figure out if Sirius simply didn't realize how dangerously close to snapping she was, or if he was deliberately seeing how far he could push her.

"Morrigan, you're not going to like this, but I swear it's for your own good," he said, and with a swish of his wand, he vanished the book into thin air.

And that's when Ariadne Morrigan lost her cool.

With a sweep of her wand, she sent another stack of books flying at his head. Sirius raised his wand to stop them and they fell to the floor with a clatter. She tried a bottle of ink and met with the same result.

"Ah, Morrigan, don't make me jinx you," said Sirius, eyes gleaming as he counteracted the spell.

Ariadne sent her quill flying toward Sirius like an arrow, and it whizzed past his ear before sticking in the back of the couch, quivering. Sirius dodged it and leapt up from the couch onto the table, blocking her hexes and sending blasts of his own in return. "SIRIUS BLACK AND ARIADNE MORRIGAN ARE DUELING," someone announced to the common room at large, which resulted in a stampede of everyone from tiny, excited first-years to a reluctant Lupin and slightly confused-looking James scrambling over armchairs and tables to get a good view.

Gryffindors loved a good fight.

"Give. Me. Back. The. Book," said Ariadne through gritted teeth in between casting and blocking disarming spells.

"But that would put an end to all the fun," said Sirius, lazily deflecting her curses with one arm behind his back.

Ariadne and Sirius were skilled enough at nonverbal spellcasting that they didn't need to utter any incantations out loud, which turned dueling into a dangerous game of split-second reactions and quick thinking. A spell like a bolt of lightning issued from her wand, only to dissolve into the shimmering translucent shield Sirius conjured in front of him. He levitated and flicked some poor first-year's pewter cauldron at her, which she vanished into a puff of smoke. They traded jabs, flicks and more complicated flourishes of their wands in silence, with only the crackles and _bangs_ of their spells making any noise, and, of course, the Gryffindors jeering and heckling them from the sidelines.

"C'mon, Sirius!"

"Heyyyyy Morrigan, looking good!" (this was accompanied by a wolf-whistle.)

"SMASH HIS SMARMY HEAD IN!"

Sirius tried attacking her with fluffy gold-and-red cushion from one of the common room armchairs, and Ariadne halted it in midair, transfigured it into a brick and sent it crashing into the table he stood on, almost causing him to lose his footing.

"Don't patronize me, Black. I know you can do better." The beams of light shooting from her wand turned red.

"Morrigan, you don't really want to stun me, do you?" Sirius was still blocking her spells almost effortlessly, but he didn't seem to think that taking a more offensive stance was necessary.

"Oh, I really do," answered Ariadne. His overconfidence would be his undoing.

She conjured a rope that coiled around his wand arm like a whip, and while he tried to recover his balance, tied up the other arm behind his back—the one he should have been using for balance. He stumbled, and as he was falling from the table, an invisible force yanked him by the neck of his tie and dragged him up to the tip of Ariadne's pointed wand. They stood there eye-to-eye for a moment, both breathing heavily.

"Well, that was fun," said Sirius, eyes still alight and hair disheveled.

"I suppose I'm glad one of us enjoyed it," replied Ariadne sardonically. "Though it would seem that the loser had more fun that the winner. My book?"

Sirius indicated his bound hands and Ariadne released them, though not without a moment's regret that she couldn't keep him like this. Sirius noticed and smirked at her. "Prefer me tied up, Morrigan?" There were _oooohs_ and whistles from the crowd.

"I can't deny that it has its benefits," she answered.

Sirius twirled his wand and _Human and Animal Transmogrification_ appeared spinning in midair. Ariadne caught it. "At least your vanishing and conjuring aren't as deficient as your transmogrification," she muttered.

"Wait until you open the book before you declare yourself victorious, Morrigan. I went easy on you this time," said Sirius.

"Yes, and that was incredibly stupid. I wouldn't make that mistake again," warned Ariadne.

Sirius merely grinned and walked off to join Lupin, James, and the crowd of hecklers who were ready to give him a hard time. Ariadne opened the heavy volume. It fell open to chapters 12 and 13, marked with a page torn from a wizard's magazine featuring a pouting, curvy witch wearing nothing but lingerie under her robes. The pages of the chapters were covered in underlining and detailed annotations. A series of particularly urgent-looking arrows pointed to a passage titled "Color Change vs. Other Forms of Transmogrification in Small Mammals":

 _While other forms of animal transmogrification, such as modification of the size of body parts, transformation of individual features, and alteration of body size would seem to have more practical applications, transmogrification of small mammals' color is an unusually complicated magical task due to the fact that most small mammals are covered in fur. Unlike color-change in reptiles, whose outer layer of skin or protection tends to be a more uniform single layer, transmogrification of color in small fur-coated mammals requires the spellcaster to individually change the color of each hair and separately transform color in non-fur-coated areas. Essentially, the transmogrification spell must be approached as a composite of hundreds and thousands of smaller transmogrifications of the individual hairs that comprise the furry coat. For this reason, assessments designed to test advanced Transfiguration abilities (such as N.E.W.T.-level wizarding exams) will often ask the examinee to change the color of a small mammal rather than attempt some other kind of bodily modification like changing the length or size of its tail._

Next to this paragraph, in slim, looping handwriting, was written, "McGonagall's exam question. 5 Galleons."

Ariadne shut the book with somewhat more force than was strictly necessary.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: Adjustments**

Ariadne was so deeply absorbed in the volume of _Advanced Rune Translation_ she was reading at dinner that she didn't even notice all three Marauders seating themselves around her until she heard a horrible chomping noise that sounded like a baby dragon tearing apart a small animal. She looked up to see James Potter snarfing down roasted chicken legs on her right, Lupin idly playing with a napkin on her left, and, of course, Sirius Black seated directly opposite her, gazing intently at her through his fringe of black hair.

"Don't you think it's a little suspicious for us to be meeting up in the Great Hall where everyone can see us? It'll attract attention," she said, closing her book.

"Good evening to you too, Morrigan," said Sirius.

Ariadne sighed. "Yesterday you were all about the 'utmost importance of secrecy' and 'protecting information.' But it's fine to meet and talk about the plan in public?"

Sirius leaned back and drummed his fingers on the table while answering. "One, you assume that we came her and interrupted your highly social dinner to talk about the plan, and not something else, and two, why would it be suspicious for us to be seen speaking with you in public?"

"One, if this _isn't_ about our top-secret, highly confidential plan then I'm not interested, and two, it's suspicious because we don't exactly run in the same social circles, you and I."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "I take issue with both of those premises. What's so suspect and intolerable about a chat with friends?"

"Don't mock me, Black."

"Is the idea that we could all be friends really so absurd?" he asked rhetorically.

" 'Friends' don't typically spend their evenings intent on trying to stun each other's brains out."

"But I don't believe you would have actually stunned me," said Sirius persuasively.

"Keep testing me and you'll find out. Besides, you know what I mean. We've already been sitting here together for too long. It's suspicious. It'll tip Yaxley off that something's up."

"And why is that?" he asked innocently.

Ariadne sighed in exasperation. Sirius knew exactly what she meant but was forcing her to spell it out. Why, she wasn't sure, but then, his motivations were usually hard to discern.

"Because I don't typically hang out with your little clique of arrogant, attention-seeking, reckless and juvenile _Marauders_ ," she hissed back.

"Ah, right, straight-laced, top student and prefect Ariadne Morrigan wouldn't be caught in the company of rogues like us. Except for the little party you helped us cover up. And the Quidditch practice…" (he avoided mentioning any further details, eyeing James, who was now stuffing his face with potatoes) "…and that little chat we had in Potions class the other day. Oh, and the two hours you and I spent together working on the Transfiguration project in the common room." He cocked his head as if surprised. "Well, it would seem that your recent record somewhat contradicts your belief that you don't 'run in the same social circles' as Marauders."

"But not everyone else knows about that. Hence, it looks suspicious for us to be hanging around together at dinner."

Sirius called in backup at this point, from a person whose opinion he knew Ariadne would respect. "Remus, what do you think? Are we endangering our plan with this risky and suspicious behavior?"

Remus looked up from the napkin he had been thoughtlessly playing with while gazing off into the distance. He looked very tired. "Well, most people, at least in Gryffindor House, are aware that McGonagall has paired you two up for the Transfiguration project. And everyone we've had classes with, which includes the Ravenclaws and Slytherins, has seen us sitting next to you in class." (Ariadne couldn't help but wonder which Marauder's idea that was, since Lupin seemed imply it wasn't his own.) "Moreover, since Priya and I have been…spending more time together, it would seem more natural for us to be friends, since everyone knows that Ariadne and Priya are close. And I can virtually guarantee that every single Hogwarts student either witnessed in person or has heard about your duel last night. So I don't think the three of us having dinner together would seem all that odd."

"Tha' was a damn good fight," interjected James in between mouthfuls of rice.

Ariadne wasn't happy to hear that news of their fight had spread so fast, though she hoped that her victory was an important detail in any distorted story passing around. "You mean, everyone witnessed or heard about us practically trying to kill each other. I don't see what about that scenario indicates 'friends who have dinner together.'"

"Well.." said Lupin, fiddling with his napkin again, "that's not exactly how it looked to most people."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Ariadne irritably. Sirius looked pleased.

Lupin merely smiled in his tired yet knowing way. "You know, for two very bright people, you can both be a little thick sometimes."

Ariadne and Sirius were both too busy trying to figure out the meaning of this unexpectedly tart comment from their normally kind and good-natured friend to respond. In the meantime, Lupin took advantage of the brief gap in their nonstop bickering to redirect them to the issue at hand.

"Ariadne, we came here to let you know that there's been an…adjustment to the plan."

"What happened?"

"Our second target has been kicked out of Death Eater camp," answered Sirius grimly.

"How do you know? Don't tell me you 'have your sources,'" she added as Sirius opened his mouth to respond. "I want to know exactly how you're getting this information and how you know it's reliable. Gryffindors are notoriously bad gossips."

James titled his head to acknowledge that she had a fair point. "There's been a rumor going around since yesterday that Ariadne is actually pregnant with Sirius' baby and that's why he took it easy on her during the duel."

Ariadne resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands at her fellow students' idiocy. She tried to stay focused. "The source?"

Sirius answered. "The target was expelled from Yaxley's group and came crying to that blockhead Persius Bolger, who told Boris Etheridge, another Slytherin in his year…"

"…whose cousin is Miralda Etheridge," finished Ariadne.

"Precisely. And as you know, Miss Etheridge has no sympathy for Yaxley's crew."

"Do you know why Yaxley booted him?"

"Not the exact details, but is sounded like Yaxley wanted him to do something that crossed the line, and he wouldn't or couldn't do it."

"Not surprising," said Ariadne, biting her lip. "They're getting more serious. They're forcing their initiates to prove their loyalty by doing horrible things. It's what real Death Eaters do."

"Anyway, the implications for us are that we don't have a second person to impersonate to infiltrate the second meeting. We just have the one. And it'll be too suspicious to try to impersonate the same person both times," concluded Sirius.

"Bit of a hitch," said James.

"No," said Ariadne slowly. "It's an opportunity."

Sirius gave her a deeply penetrating look. "Explain."

"This…person (since you still haven't told me who it is) has been on the inside of Yaxley's gang and knows plenty about it—who's in it, how it works, how deep it goes. And now he's feeling less-than-favorably towards it. We can turn him on our side and persuade him to tell us everything he knows rather than gathering things piecemeal through rumors. He's an indispensably valuable source of information," Ariadne explained.

"Easier said than done. Yaxley isn't stupid enough to turn someone loose without some kind of insurance that we won't turn informant. We don't know what that might be—it could just be threats against their safety or family if they squeak, or they could be magically bound to silence. Yaxley could have made them take an Unbreakable Vow," countered Sirius.

"Well, we won't know until we talk to him," said Ariadne.

"It's a her," corrected Sirius with a tiny, satisfied smirk


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: Brewing**

"So you're still not going to tell me who she is?" said Ariadne for probably the third time that night, while rummaging through her personal store of potions ingredients.

"That information isn't necessary for you to know until we arrange a time to speak with her," answered Sirius, who was examining a greenish-brown jar of pickled bat spleens.

"You just really enjoy knowing something that I don't and lording it over me," said Ariadne, locating the jars, sachets and bottles that she wanted and bringing them down to the table.

"Considering that you generally make it your business to know more about everything than everyone else, can you really blame me for enjoying this one moment of advanced enlightenment?"

"Is that your eloquent and suave way of calling me a know-it-all?"

Sirius' face broke into that roguish grin Ariadne was coming to know all too well. "Perhaps."

"Well, that 'know-it-all' is going to show you how to brew a double-batch of long-lasting Polyjuice Potion to take down some dark wizards, so you might consider being a little nicer to her," answered Ariadne almost teasingly.

It was well after midnight in the potions classroom in the dungeons. Ariadne and Sirius had snuck down there after most of the castle was asleep, as this was the only time that they could brew an illicit potion in secret and the only place that contained all the ingredients they needed. Sirius had "borrowed" James' invisibility cloak (insisting that James wouldn't mind) and refused to let Ariadne examine it more closely when she expressed her shock that James casually owned such a rare and powerful magical object. Ariadne was still periodically casting it suspicious glances as it lay crumpled in a corner of the dungeon classroom. She had also refused Sirius' suggestion that he carry her under the cloak so that they would both fit, meaning that had to hunch down and stay very close to one another in order to remain hidden, which still made the journey down to the dungeons somewhat more intimate than Ariadne would have preferred.

"I have nothing but utmost respect for your potion-making talents, Morrigan," said Sirius in his voice that always seemed tinged with a hint of insubordination.

Ariadne simply sighed and began sorting the ingredients according to the order they would need them.

"So how long do you reckon this is going to take us, Morrigan?" asked Sirius, indicating the organized rows of sachets, jars and bottles.

"One month," responded Ariadne, still focused on measuring and sorting.

Sirius barked out a laugh, which caused Ariadne to look up. "That wasn't supposed to be a humorous comment, Black."

"A _month_? You can't be serious, Morrigan."

"Have you not been paying attention since fifth year? Polyjuice Potion takes one month to reach full maturity."

"We can easily do it in three weeks."

"No, we can't."

"I've done it in three weeks."

"And how did that work out for you?" Ariadne asked rhetorically, crossing her arms.

Sirius looked evasive. "It was perfectly fine. I transformed into Potter for one hour exactly. I looked and sounded just like him."

Ariadne raised her eyebrow. "Is that so? And everything went fine? No…unusual side effects, for example?"

Sirius sighed and set down the jar of bat spleens he had been examining. "I swear on Merlin's grave, Morrigan, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were raised from birth by Minerva McGonagall to grow up just like her."

"You're avoiding the question."

"All right, there were some minor side effects from boiling the lacewing flies at higher heat. But my point is, the potion worked. And time is of the essence if we are going to nip this Death Eater nonsense in the bud."

"Your nose was randomly engorging and shrinking for a week. Half the time it would look normal, and then it would morph into Potter's nose and back again." James had a notorious record of broken noses from playing Quidditch, which had left him with an unusual nose shape.

"At least it wasn't something else engorging and shrinking," muttered Sirius.

"What?"

"Never mind, Morrigan. My point is that it's possible to brew it faster."

"That's your problem, Black," said Ariadne, now measuring and cutting lengths of boomslang skin. "You're impatient. You think there are shortcuts and that only you are clever and brave enough to try them. Have you ever considered that sometimes it simply takes time to do things properly?"

Sirius' eyes glimmered in the dim lamplight that served as their only illumination. "I'm more familiar with that concept than you might realize, Morrigan."

Ariadne tried to hide that the knife she was using had slipped a little, or let on that Sirius's words had any deeper meaning to her. She wouldn't indulge his games. Normally, she thought that there was nothing about their exchange that seemed anything but innocent, but in the semi-dark room, late at night, knowing that they were perhaps the only two people awake in the entire castle, things felt slightly different, somehow.

Sirius got up from his stool to examine the ingredients she was measuring and sorting. "Boomslang skin? Powdered bicorn horn? I didn't realize you were also dipping your hand into the Potions master's personal store."

"I didn't steal these. I was given permission to purchase my own store of rare ingredients for advanced potion-making."

Sirius looked slightly miffed. "I was never granted permission to buy rare ingredients."

"Well, did you ask?" replied Ariadne, now measuring out and weighing the proper amount of leeches. Sirius reached for the strips of boomslang skin and she smacked his hand away. "No touching the boomslang with bare hands. The oils on your fingers contaminate the hide and break down the natural membrane."

"Are you going to let me be involved in the brewing of this potion at all?"

"I thought you'd never ask. Start the cauldron at low heat and boil two quarts of distilled water."

Sirius saluted her sarcastically but did as she asked. In the meantime, Ariadne was struggling with two bundles of particularly tough knotgrass. The knife was too dull to chop them and her severing charm couldn't cut through the thickest knots. She was so occupied by her task that she hardly noticed Sirius come up behind her. He wrapped his fingers around the hand holding her knife and set it aside. "Let me show you a little trick I learned while working with knotgrass for swelling solutions," he murmured, very close to her ear. "Do you have any detangling potion around?" In the next second he was gone, opening and closing cabinets in search of the potion.

Ariadne took a second to recover herself from the surprise of his proximity and his sudden departure. "Yes, there should be some on the top right shelf of my cupboard," she told him, looking over her shoulder.

Sirius returned with the small flask of deep purple liquid. "I figured you might have some since it's common for girls to have some on hand for their hair, though I can't imagine that you in particular would really need it," he said. Was that a slightly admiring glance at her silky, wavy hair, or was Ariadne imagining it?

"Sometimes my friends ask for some, and it's easy enough to make," Ariadne quickly explained.

"Anyway, I picked up this trick from reading some very old potion-making books that have ended up in the restricted section."

"Is it safe?" asked Ariadne, immediately suspicious.

Sirius put down the bottle and looked at Ariadne. "You really do need to learn to trust me if we're going to be working together this much," he said in a lower and gentler tone than usual.

Ariadne couldn't deny that she felt lulled by his deep, husky voice. But she wasn't sure if it was a sense of security she felt, or something else. She tried to relax, despite a different sort of sensation that was stirring inside her.

"All right, I trust you. I was just worried when you said 'restricted section.'"

"Not everything in the restricted section is cause for worry. A lot of perfectly fine medieval wizarding tracts end up there because they didn't use to make such a clear distinction between light and dark magic, back in the day," said Sirius, now pouring the detangling potion over the knottiest portions of the knotgrass, and gently running through the blades of grass with his fingers. The knots instantly unraveled and smoothed themselves out. He then took the knife and easily sliced through them.

"That's a pretty neat trick," she conceded, now taking a backseat to the potion preparation as he continued cutting up the knotgrass into evenly-sized sections.

Sirius was absorbed in making sure that each bundle of knotgrass was sliced into precisely even portions, giving Ariadne an opportunity to observe the intent focus in his dark eyes, his long hair hanging down to partially hide them, and his hands handling the knife skillfully and gently. She unexpectedly recalled the night of the Quidditch party, when he had pressed drinks into her hand just like he had grasped her hand to put aside the knife. It now seemed like they were practically strangers then. Yet that night they successfully worked together to conceal a massive and raucous party from right under McGonagall's nose. Working together seemed to come so naturally to them…at least, when they weren't arguing, Ariadne thought.

"Morrigan?" Sirius's voice broke her deep reverie. He was looking at her with slight concern.

"Sorry, I must have zoned out. I'm tired."

"Understandable, considering you spent all day studying. Do you ever take a break for anything else?"

"Just secret nighttime illegal potion-making."

"And Gryffindor common room parties."

"That was _one_ time."

"I predict it won't be your last," he said, grinning. "Anyhow, I was just asking if you think the water is ready for the first batch of ingredients. It's been boiling for seven minutes."

"Yes, that's perfect. Add half of them now and stir four times clockwise. Then we have to wait another seven minutes and add the second half."

They gathered the measured ingredients and dumped them into the bubbling cauldron, which instantly turned swamp green. Then, it was time to wait.

"How long do you think we'll have once we've transformed into our savory characters using this delectable beverage?" asked Sirius.

"Twelve hours," answered Ariadne without hesitation.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure about that, Morrigan? The longest-lasting Polyjuice Potion I've ever seen was about eight."

"My Polyjuice Potion is the best. That's why we're not rushing anything or taking any of your shortcuts. Once it's brewed and ready, you'll be able to transform into your chosen person for twelve hours. Don't you trust me?" she couldn't help adding.

"Maybe with the brewing part, but perhaps I should take over when we start the enchantments next week. Some of your stunning spells the other day looked a bit shoddy."

Ariadne almost became indignant until she caught his grin ands realized he was merely messing with her. "My spells were perfectly adequate, as evidenced by the fact that the duel ended with you in front of my wand and both hands tied behind your back."

"I can't say there isn't a certain appeal when a witch ties me up and points her wand at me."

Maybe it was the darkened room, which seemed to make it safer to be vulnerable, or maybe it was the intimacy of being alone together in the middle of the night with no one else around, but Ariadne felt more willing to acknowledge the tension that had been brewing ever since the party and had partly exploded in their duel. But, not all of it had been vented, and Ariadne could feel it surfacing again between them.

"I didn't realize that was the kind of thing you're into."

"I'm not sure I realized it either, until you came along."

They held each other's gaze with the weight of they weren't saying hanging between them. Ariadne wasn't sure where to go with this next.

"You duel well," she admitted. "I really was trying my hardest to stun you."

"I'm not sure if I'm disappointed to hear that or pleased that my countercurses were so effective. Or surprised that Ariadne Morrigan is offering me a genuine compliment."

"Your reflexes are quick and you anticipated the stunning spells almost before I cast them. It's a unique wizarding ability that will make you a powerful duelist. But your stance definitely needs work."

"Ah, here comes the constructive criticism."

"I can show you if you want. Or I can just let you have it handed to you the next time we duel."

Sirius stood up and took his normal dueling stance. "Demonstrate away, Professor Morrigan."

Ariadne walked around him in a circle, surveying his every body part and position. Sirius was tall but not gangly. He had already taken on that slim, solid build of an adult rather than the lanky limbs of a teenager. The heavy fabric of his robes concealed the lean, taut build of his chest, which Ariadne only knew existed because of having slept on it. She tried to refocus her thoughts away from that dangerous line of thinking. Away from the warm, solid feeling of his muscles, and the way they flexed and moved while he was dancing…

She nudged his right foot into a better position and spread his non-wand arm out wider. "Usually younger witches and wizards have the opposite problem, but your stance is too wide. It makes you stolid and vulnerable to losing your balance. You need to be able to shift your foot position easily. You also need to use your balancing arm better."

She got behind him and grasped his wand arm, putting her other arm around him to adjust his balancing arm. Both of his arms were much longer than hers and she could just barely reach. Almost painfully conscious of how close her face was to his, she quietly instructed, "Grip your wand a little tighter. You have a very relaxed grip, which isn't always a bad thing, but too loose means you're susceptible to having it knocked out of your hand."

Ariadne sensed his head turning ever to slightly, almost imperceptibly, to look at her, and felt the ends of his hair brush against her cheek. Just then, the magical hourglass she had set to time the potion went off, humming and vibrating quietly. She broke away from Sirius and began adding the second batch of ingredients to stew. Sirius came over to help her, saying nothing, but still gazing at her in his intense way.

"Where are we going to hide the potion while it's brewing?"

"In plain sight," answered Ariadne. She drew a complicated shape in the air with her wand and swept it over the cauldron. The thick, muddy, greenish liquid appeared to turn the innocent earthy yellow of a swelling solution.

"That's a neat trick, Morrigan," Sirius murmured. They packed away the rest of the ingredients. Then they were technically done for the night, yet something seemed unfinished. Sirius made no motion to leave, simply leaning against the table in his casual way, looking at her.

"It's late," said Ariadne, not looking him directly in the eye. "We should get to bed."

Sirius indicated his agreement with a nod of his head and held up the invisibility cloak for her to slip under.

 **A/N: So I've realized that trying to update every day was becoming an unrealistic and unsustainable goal, plus I was just writing short chapters to get something out. So expect updates more around every other weekday, but they will be much longer and more satisfying ones! Also, as you can hopefully tell, things are heating up between Sirius and Ariadne, so advance warning of more mature content in the chapters ahead. –A**


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: Waiting**

"We are not giving her a secret code name," said Ariadne flatly.

"Look, I'm just saying, I think it would be pretty cool, plus it would help protect her identity in case Yaxley finds out someone squeaked. 'Utmost secrecy' and all. What do you think, Sirius?"

"Shut up, James, I'm trying to listen," growled Sirius.

Ariadne, Sirius, James and Lupin were huddled behind a massive tree on the far edges of the school grounds, right on the border of the Forbidden Forest. Sirius had decided that this was the only safe and secret place to hold their meeting with the Yaxley defector-turned-informant. Ariadne had thought this was a bit extreme, but Sirius insisted. She couldn't help but think the choice of location and time had something to do with Ariadne's instinctive aversion to sneaking out of the castle late at night. It was nearly midnight and pitch black.

"At this rate I may as well become nocturnal," muttered Ariadne to no one in particular, holding back a yawn.

"Can we cut down on the background chatter, please? I think I hear someone coming. Or, I would, if you lot weren't going at it like overactive pixies."

Ariadne shot Sirius a glare but stayed quiet and shook her head at James, who looked like he was about to make another plug for bestowing their informant with a secret alias.

Sirius finally relaxed and assumed a seat leaning against the tree. "I think it must have been a stray cat or something. I don't see her yet."

"So what's the plan of attack?" asked James, leaning in conspiratorially.

"We're not attacking anyone, Potter. This isn't a Quidditch match," responded Ariadne.

"Right, but—you know what I mean. What are we going to ask her?"

Sirius and Ariadne both began talking at the same time. They stopped at looked at each other. "Ladies first, Morrigan," said Sirius, gesturing for her to go on.

"We obviously need to find out first what kind of limitations have been placed on her by Yaxley and how much she can say. Whether that's an Unbreakable Vow, or some kind of curse, or threats that will force her to lie. Otherwise, we could seriously harm her by asking the wrong questions.

"I disagree. We should attempt to get as much information out of her as possible before any kind of enchantment kicks in or she chickens out. For all we know she may be forbidden from even having this kind of meeting. We may only get minutes with her," countered Sirius.

"We won't even know what it's possible to ask her unless we figure out what she's allowed to say."

"We'll just make a list of the most important things we need to know and ask her rapid-fire."

"We should be trying to gain her trust and establish a longer-term relationship with her. You're only thinking about immediate results. If she learns to trust us, she can become an invaluable source or even turn double-agent."

"I doubt that's even possible. Once you defect from Voldemort's following, you're cast out forever. Or dead."

"Shhh!" hissed James. Ariadne couldn't help but agree that saying the dark wizard's name in the pitch-black, silent night felt even more dangerous than it usually would.

"I'm not afraid of Yaxley and his thugs or You-Know-Who," said Sirius, eyes glinting even in the darkness.

"Neither am I," said Ariadne calmly. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't go about this strategically and carefully."

"So…then our plan is…?" trailed off James, looking between Ariadne and Sirius in uncertainty.

"Shhh!" It was Lupin's turn to hush them. They fell silent and heard the sound of footsteps quietly crunching through fallen leaves. Sirius lighted his wand silently and nodded to the rest of them. They stood up and Ariadne peered around the trunk of the tree.

The footsteps were getting closer. Sirius had pulled out the Marauder's Map and was examining it by wandlight. He nodded to Lupin as if to confirm that the approaching person was who they expected.

He turned around and emerged from behind the tree, and the light of his wand hit a pale face surrounded by silky dark hair and a blue-and-silver scarf.

Ariadne squinted at the face in disbelief. "Clarice?"

"Ariadne?"

 **A/N: TO BE CONTINUED...**


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22: Traitor**

"YOU'RE the informant? _You_ joined Yaxley's gang of racist, pathetic sycophants?"

Clarice frowned and folded her arms. "It's nice to see you too, Ariadne," she answered sarcastically. "How are Aunt Aisha and Uncle Morrigan doing? Keeping well, I hope?"

Ariadne grabbed her wand from within her pocket and Sirius actually put his hand on her arm to stop her from going further.

"You two…know each other?" asked James, even more uncertain than before.

Ariadne was almost too furious to explain. "Clarice is my cousin," she answered through gritted teeth.

James threw up his hands and even Lupin looked mildly surprised. "Is anyone at Hogwarts NOT related to each other?"

"Potter, you should know how these old pureblood families work, since you come from one. Constantly pumping out little witch and wizard babies to maintain the bloodline. And they all end up here at Hogwarts."

"Of course, some of us do better at upholding the family honor than others," said Clarice with a nasty edge to her voice.

"I don't think you're in any position to be calling me blood traitor, Clarice."

"Oh, I didn't say anything about blood…," said Clarice, eyeing James' red-and-gold scarf and the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain badge he always had pinned to his robes. "I was thinking more about the legacy of one's House."

"And how have you been honoring your Ravenclaw heritage, Clarice? By hanging around with blood-fanatic Slytherins?"

"At least the Slytherins have some semblance of ambition and talent. They're smart enough to know to align themselves with the most powerful wizard currently alive. And some of the things they've taught me…let's just say you're not going to learn them while studying for your precious N.E.W.T.S," answered Clarice with a superior smirk.

"You disgust me."

Sirius attempted to intervene. "Look, I know you two have some family…history between you, but we all have a common goal. If you can put that aside, I'm sure two smart witches like you could do a lot together."

Ariadne now rounded on Sirius. "You knew, didn't you? That she's my cousin? You knew all along she was the informant and didn't tell me!"

Sirius raised his hands in confession. "I knew you would react like this, Ariadne, and then you might not agree to meet with her."

"With good reason!"

"You're her family. I thought you two could get on better than this."

"You should know better than to tell me something like that, Sirius Black."

It was hard to tell in the darkness, but Ariadne thought she saw Sirius flinch. She turned back to Clarice, who seemed to be enjoying the scene more than ever. Lupin at last attempted to salvage their original mission.

"Clarice, we need to know if Yaxley has placed any restrictions on what you can and can't tell us about his…organization."

"What do you want to know?" answered Clarice, arms crossed.

Sirius jumped in. "The names of every member in the group. How many people know about it. How often they meet. Who they're planning to target next. Any long-term or future plans. The level of direct involvement from Death Eaters outside the castle."

"We also want to know why you left," added Ariadne quietly, finally putting her anger aside.

Clarice snickered a little to herself. "Typical Gryffindors. Know nothing and expect someone else to give you all the answers. You know, if you did a little more work, you might be able to find the answers to all of those questions on your own."

Ariadne stepped forward. "Clarice, that's why you're here. Help us take down Yaxley. Do good by Ravenclaw and our legacy. Ravenclaw wouldn't want innocent, capable witches and wizards to be targeted and harassed, regardless of their blood status."

"Don't preach to me about what Ravenclaw would or wouldn't want, Ariadne. It's clear where your allegiance lies. I'll admit, I was as surprised as anyone else when you were sorted. And when I heard you were still getting top marks in our year, I thought that maybe it didn't matter which house you were put in, or that maybe Gryffindors aren't as thick-headed as everyone thinks. But now that I know what kind of company you're keeping…" She let her gaze trail over Remus and James' faces, and then deliberately lingered on Sirius's. "I understand now that you only seem talented by comparison."

In an instant, Ariadne's wand was raised again. "Clarice, I suggest you choose your words more carefully when you're speaking about my friends."

Her malicious smile only widened. Lupin, who seemed most impervious to her insults, gave the questioning another effort. "Clarice, you left Yaxley's gang, which probably involved no small effort. You must hate them nearly as much as we do. Don't you want to see them fall?"

"It's true that Yaxley charges a high price for admission into his cult. He's becoming more…demanding. He wants his followers to prove their loyalty beyond a doubt," said Clarice, with a bit less of her supercilious swagger.

"You can't be the only one who refused to torture a Muggleborn, or whatever it is he asked you to do," urged James. "There must be others who want out."

"Those who too weak to do what he asks don't last very long," Clarice answered, almost murmuring now.

Ariadne pushed forward so that she could look Clarice in the eye. "Clarice, what did he ask you to do?"

"You could have never done it, Ariadne. That's why, regardless of your exam scores on some pointless school subject, I will always be a more powerful witch than you," said Clarice.

"Clarice…?"

She gave one final smile and snapped her fingers. That's when the curses started flying.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23: Recovery**

"We're lucky we made it out of that alive," said Lupin in a low voice.

"Speak for yourself," said James grumpily from his four-poster bed, where he was reclining with a murtlap-essence soaked cloth against his right arm to staunch the bleeding from a gash.

"Keep up the pressure on your arm, Potter," reminded Ariadne.

"Got it, Nurse Morrigan."

They were gathered in the seventh-year boys' dormitory around Sirius's bed in the small hours of the morning, not having gone to sleep after the ambush in the Forbidden Forest. Lupin was seated cross-legged on the floor in front of Sirius's bed, his chin in his hands, looking rather brooding. Sirius was draped across a chair, his feet up on the small desk against the wall. Only the frequency and agitation with which he ran his fingers through his shaggy hair betrayed any emotion of anxiety. Ariadne had been graciously granted a spot on the bed, where she had already shed her cloak and robe, feeling somehow suffocated by them.

Sirius turned to her. "Are you convinced now that we're involved in something bigger than a teenage prank?"

"I've never failed to take this seriously, Black."

"I believe I recall you dismissing my security precautions a few days ago because, in your own words, 'this isn't the Department of Mysteries, we're 17.'"

"Right, and look how beautifully your 'secrecy and discretion' worked out."

"It made sense at the time to keep Clarice's identity a secret. It helped protect her and gain her trust, and I knew you wouldn't like the idea of meeting with her."

"I could have warned you she can't be trusted and saved us all a lot of trouble."

James groaned and rolled over on his bed. "Could you two stuff it for just a minute? We've been over this already. Sirius was wrong, Ariadne was right, blah blah blah."

"I wasn't 'wrong," began Sirius, irritated.

"And how d'you figure that, mate?" asked James.

"I did the best I could with the information available to me at the time," he answered.

"No, you didn't," pointed out Ariadne.

"Pardon?"

"You didn't use all the information available to you at the time, because you failed to take advantage of my intimate and exclusive knowledge that Clarice is a lying, selfish, power-hungry egomaniac."

"I thought since you two are related, you would be able to connect to her better or something, and get her to talk. I thought she'd trust you."

"Clarice isn't the person I need to trust me, Black."

Something about that statement seemed to affect Sirius more than anything else Ariadne had said. He swung his feet off the desk and sat up to face them all more fully. "All right, I admit that I…messed this up. I placed my trust in the wrong person." He glanced ever so briefly at Ariadne, now hugging her knees on his bed. "I was blinded by my overconfidence and put everyone in danger." He looked at James. "I'm sorry about your arm, James."

"S'alright, mate. I've gotten worse for less important things."

Sirius glanced down at Lupin, still huddled at the base of his chair. Remus smiled. "You may have concocted this particular plan, but we all went along with it. Because we trust you. We knew there would be risks involved."

Ariadne was well aware that she was next in line as the eyes of the three young men focused on her. "I kind of want to hear Black admit he was wrong one more time."

James snickered and Lupin cracked another smile. "Savor the moment, Morrigan. It doesn't happen very often," responded Sirius wryly.

"Oh, I intend to. And I won't forget it, either. Now, do you promise you'll share ALL of the details of your next harebrained scheme with us and trust my judgment?"

"I'm going to regret this," muttered Sirius. "Fine, Morrigan, I promise."

"Good. I was going to ask you another question but I now see that that is pointless."

"What?"

"It's not important."

"Morrigan, tell me."

"I was going to ask whether you think Clarice's boyfriend, that tall kid on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, might also be in Yaxley's gang, but it's obvious now that you're a terrible judge of character, so don't bother."

James sat up too suddenly and winced. "The tall Chaser? That bloke is a walking rulebook. Can't pass the Quaffle for his life, but can cite every possible foul or violation at you."

"Sounds like a charming guy," murmured Lupin.

"I hadn't considered that…." said Sirius, frowning, and seeming to let Ariadne's dig go. "We obviously have a lot of work to do."

"For once, I agree. We vastly underestimated Clarice and the rest of Yaxley's crew. They played us, and easily. We need to be much smarter," said Ariadne.

"Seems like the junior Death Eaters aren't as dumb as we thought," added James.

"We weren't wrong about everything, though," said Lupin, now stretching out his arms and leaning back on them.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we were right that Yaxley is forcing his initiates to prove their loyalty. Clarice's test, as we've now seen, was to pretend to go rogue, double-cross us and lead us into an ambush," explained Lupin.

"Bolger must have leaked the story to Boris Etheridge on purpose, knowing that he'd tell Miralda…" said Sirius slowly.

"…and knowing that Miralda would tell one of you," finished Ariadne.

"And Clarice must have been selected for this particular mission because of her connection to Ariadne. They thought we would be more likely to trust her," said Lupin.

"I played right into their hands," muttered Sirius, burying his face in said appendages.

"Still, it's a gamble on Yaxley's part. We now know the identity of one of his followers. And, if my hunch about her boyfriend is right, perhaps two," said Ariadne.

"I bet he thought he'd really get us in the Forbidden Forest. Luckily for you all, I am a master of defensive spells and as a result, you all escaped without a scratch," piped up James from his bed, grinning.

"Using your arm as a shield was certainly an innovative defensive strategy that I haven't seen before," Sirius bantered.

"It was a sacrifice I was willing to make for the greater good," responded James dramatically.

"Potter's… 'heroism' aside, Remus is right—I don't think Yaxley expected us to get away without serious injuries. I think he meant to scare us off for good. But we're okay, and now we have more information that we can use against him," said Ariadne.

"Morrigan is right, too," said Sirius, resuming an air of seriousness. "In fact, if she's really right about snake-face's boyfriend, then we have our two targets for impersonation."

"Don't you think it'll be too obvious if we try to impersonate Clarice? Yaxley might suspect it," asked Lupin.

"Not at all. In fact, for the same reason she was the perfect choice to betray us, she's the perfect choice to infiltrate the meeting. Ariadne knows all kinds of things about her, so she can act as a convincing Clarice."

Ariadne stared at Sirius. "You're not actually suggesting that _I_ should be the one to infiltrate the first meeting."

Sirius looked back at her evenly. "That's precisely what I'm suggesting."

Ariadne unfolded her legs. "Look, I got on board with this to help you brew some Polyjuice Potion. I never agreed to this level of involvement."

"Well, you're in it now, Morrigan," said Sirius, again in that even, low tone.

There was a brief silence. Then James announced from his four-poster, "Welcome to the Marauders, Ariadne Morrigan!" He then stage-whispered to Sirius and Lupin, "I think we should show her the map now."

Sirius glanced at James a bit warily. "She already knows about the map."

James looked surprised, and then slightly offended. "You showed her our baby without telling me?" Even Remus raised an eyebrow.

"It was the night of the Quidditch party, and I needed to show her that McGonagall and Filch weren't on our tails…well, never mind. She already knows," explained Sirius evasively.

"Have you told her about…?" James broke off when he saw Sirius give him a warning look.

Ariadne rolled her eyes internally. "Yaxley could pick up a few pointers from you all about running a cult."

James and Sirius were still too busy communicating with each other, in that silent way that only two friends who had basically grown into adults together could, to respond to her comment.

"All right," said Sirius at last. "We should get some rest and regroup later to figure out how to proceed. Assuming that Morrigan accepts the role I've proposed to her," he said, looking at her pointedly.

Ariadne looked away. "Let me sleep on it. For a few hours, at least," she said, glancing at her watch with a sigh. Sirius merely looked at her in response, which she supposed she'd have to take as a yes. Lupin got off the floor and made for his bed at the far end of the room near the door, and Ariadne began gathering up her robes and cloak to make for the door as well.

James, shifting around on his bed to get comfortable, seemed surprised by Ariadne's movements. "You're not staying, Morrigan?"

Ariadne looked at him in confusion. "My dormitory is right down the stairs, Potter."

James now glanced at Sirius and shrugged. "Well, as you wish, my lady."

Ariadne frowned and pushed through the dormitory door. As she was leaving, she heard James saying in a tone of indignant surprise, "…showed her the MAP but you still won't sleep together?"


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24: The Challenge**

Potions was a struggle the following afternoon after only a few hours of sleep, but Ariadne was determined not to let her weeks of perfecting the Draught of Living Death to go to waste. She knew it was likely that the potion would appear in the their N.E.W.T. exam, and she wanted to ensure that she had the process down to a tee.

The group of N.E.W.T-level Potions students was small, considering that very few made it to the advanced stage of this difficult subject (or wanted to.) The seventh-year Gryffindors were paired with the Slytherins for Potions this semester, and in total there were only about a dozen of them.

This made it very easy for Sirius to set up his cauldron right next to Ariadne's without attracting any notice. He then took the opportunity to spend the entire double-period dropping hints about the plan to infiltrate Yaxley's group and not-so-subtly persuading her to agree to impersonate Clarice.

"You've known Clarice since you were children. Your disguise would be foolproof," he murmured while going to the store-cupboard for more wormwood.

"You _guaranteed_ me that your Polyjuice Potion would last for 12 full hours," he said, leaning close to her under the pretense of adjusting the flame below his cauldron.

"Impersonating Clarice is our absolute best opportunity to take down Yaxley," he whispered while stirring in another dose of powdered asphodel.

Ariadne was resolutely ignoring him and concentrating on her own potion, but her patience had its limits. She was focusing on a particularly tricky sequence of alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise stirs while simultaneously adding ingredients when she saw Sirius leaning in again and opening his mouth to speak.

"If you're about to tell me that I'm Hogwarts' best chance for redemption against the forces of darkness, save it," she pre-empted rather snappily, trying not to lose count of her clockwise stirs.

"Actually, I was going to ask if I could borrow your knife. Mine's getting rather dull," he with a smirk.

Ariadne grabbed the implement and handed it to him without letting her eyes leave her cauldron. Sirius's hand closed over hers and he slowly and carefully slid the knife out from between her fingers. "Careful, Morrigan. Let's not handle dangerous things lightly," he said.

"Isn't that exactly what you're asking me to do, though?" she said impatiently. "Do you fully comprehend how risky it is to insert myself into a meeting full of dark wizards in training at some unknown location? Yaxley will be expecting something like this. He already knew exactly how to trap us with Clarice. He's smarter than you think and you're underestimating him," hissed Ariadne through the pinkish vapors rising from her cauldron.

"Morrigan, I watched Yaxley hex his own pinky finger off while trying to grow his hands bigger to catch the Quaffle in third year," said Sirius dismissively. "He's an imbecile who would've been kicked out before his N.E.W.T.S. if not for his powerful father pulling strings for him."

"But you can't deny he completely outsmarted us in the forest," countered Ariadne.

" _Someone_ outsmarted us."

Ariadne narrowed her eyes at him. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well it's obvious, isn't it?" Sirius said, his eyes glinting in the dull glow emanating from his cauldron. "There's no way Yaxley could have come up with that plan on his own. He's getting help from outside Hogwarts."

Ariadne bit her lip, an action that Sirius apparently found somewhat interesting, considering that his eyes lingered on her mouth just a bit longer than she would have deemed normal. But Ariadne was too preoccupied with the implications of his statement to devote more attention to Sirius's wandering eyes. If Yaxley was getting help from outside the castle, it made their mission much more serious and dangerous.

"This makes our plan even more serious and dangerous," she told Sirius. "I mean, if you're right, that is."

"I'm right," said Sirius breezily and confidently, now cutting up his sopophorous bean.

"You do realize that your highly inflated ego and overconfidence leads you to underestimate your opponents and sometimes results in your downfall?" said Ariadne, as more of a statement than a question.

"Not in my experience," said Sirius with a shrug.

"I can't tell whose head is bigger, Potter or yours," muttered Ariadne. "Can I have my knife back?"

Sirius was about to return it but pulled it back at the last second, as if considering something. "Just for the record, nothing of Potter's is bigger than mine."

"Without any personal experience to suggest otherwise, I suppose I can't refute that statement," said Ariadne dryly, holding out her hand for her knife.

Sirius seemed satisfied with her answer and gave her the knife, which confused Ariadne, because she hadn't said anything to compliment him.

It took her four more clockwise stirs of her potion before she realized what was going on. She set her wand aside and glared at Sirius. "Did you just test me to make sure I haven't slept with Potter?" she said as quietly yet indignantly as possible.

Sirius barely glanced up from stirring his own cauldron, seeming unfazed by her disapproval. "So you haven't."

"Whether I have or haven't is none of your business!"

"I didn't ask you if you had slept with him. You volunteered that information, love," he replied with one of his particularly infuriating smirks.

Ariadne resisted the urge to huff in annoyance and finally got to cutting her sopophorous beans. "Why do you care if I have, anyway?"

"Sheer curiosity," replied Sirius, apparently disinterested and wholly focused on his own brew.

Ariadne didn't buy the act.

"Potter certainly seemed invested in me spending the night in your dormitory yesterday," she probed, watching for his reaction out of the corner of her eye.

Sirius was adding the chopped beans to his potion. "Really?"

"Don't play dumb, Black, I heard him."

"Well, I wonder why Potter would say something like that. By the way, your sopophorous beans are leaking," he added.

"They're supposed to be. The key aging ingredient in sopophorous beans comes from the juice, not the pod or the skin of the beans. Crushing them releases more juice than cutting them up," she said, collecting the juice in a small vial and pouring it into her potion. "And what do you mean, you wonder why Potter said that?" she added, now stirring.

Sirius sighed and put down the spoon he had been using to ladle out a sample of his potion. "Don't play dumb, Morrigan. You know that Potter expected you to spend the night with me, not him."

Ariadne did know this, so she wasn't sure why she was reacting so defensively. "Maybe he was just saying that so as not to upset you."

Sirius gazed at her with an unreadable expression, made even more inscrutable by the vapors and smoke hanging between them. "As single-minded as you can be about your studies, to the point of blocking out everything else around you, do you really expect me to believe that you're not aware that the entire school thinks we've shagged, or are about to at any moment?" he said in a low voice, which was always a bit huskier than his regular tone.

Ariadne let his question hang in the shimmering air for a moment and folder her arms. "Well, are we?" she asked matter-of-factly, with a hint of a challenge in her voice.

Sirius either didn't know how to or didn't have the chance to respond, because at that moment, someone with oversized, batlike robes and a mat of oily black hair swept by Ariadne's cauldron. Ariadne watched Severus Snape glance over at her pale, carnation pink brew out of the corner of his eye. A slight sneer spread over his mouth and, and he turned his back, muttering with satisfaction, "Probably an _acceptable_ , if that much."

 _Acceptable?_ After she had she had reduced and thrown out her Valerian root juice _three times_ to make sure she had gotten the concentration exactly right?

Ariadne saw red. Oddly, it seem flickered through with gold, too.

Snape had already busied himself with searching the store cupboards for another ingredient when Ariadne heard following words come out of her mouth, bold and clear, and seemingly of their own accord.

"My Draught of Living Death is perfect. I dare you to do better."

He turned around, his eyes narrowing, and the rest of the class turned to stare, too.

 _And this, Ariadne_ , she thought to herself, _is why you're a Gryffindor, and not a Ravenclaw._


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25: The Test**

"What's that, Morrigan?" said Snape in a greasy voice that matched his hair.

 _Well, there's no backing down now_ , thought Ariadne. "I said, my Draught of Living Death is impeccable, and I challenge you to do better."

Snape slowly advanced toward her cauldron. "Care to test that theory?"

Ariadne knew that this was a challenge Snape didn't expect her to accept. The Draught of Living Death induced an intense comatose state in its subject, and was very dangerous if brewed improperly. A Draught that was even the tiniest bit off could poison you or result in death. The measurements of ingredients, temperature, concentration, spells, and process of brewing had to be exactly right to produce that deep, cold sleep that perfectly mimicked death.

"I don't need to test my potion to know that it's getting an Outstanding," she told Snape.

His lip curled. "I thought not," he said, turning back to his cauldron.

"Wait," said Sirius, coming forward so he stood between Ariadne and Snape. "I'll test it."

"Excuse me?" said Ariadne, unable to disguise her surprise. Snape seemed caught off guard, too.

"You can test your Draught on me," repeated Sirius calmly. "Snivellus will probably have to test his on himself, as I doubt he'll find anyone willing to take that risk for him," he added.

"Sirius, that really isn't necessary," Ariadne replied, trying to de-escalate the situation.

"No, let's have it. Not-good-enough-for-Slytherin Sirius Black and his dirty-blood girlfriend think they can top my Draught of Living Death," replied Snape with a sneer. "We'll see."

Every ounce of Ariadne's resolution to walk away evaporated. "Your pure blood won't save you when it's frozen in your veins like ice, Severus," she said quietly.

"Dungeons under the Astronomy Tower. Nine o'clock tonight." Snape slouched off to his corner of the classroom as the Potions master returned to check on everyone's progress. Ariadne surreptitiously ladled out a single dose of her draught into a small vial. She glanced at Sirius, and he grinned back.

"You know that you don't need to do this, right?" Ariadne told Sirius for the umpteenth time that evening.

"No, I had no idea. It's not like a certain overanxious prefect has been telling that me every quarter-hour on the dot," replied Sirius sarcastically.

"We don't need to play Snape's game in order to prove that we're better than him. We don't need to prove anything at all to someone who uses the term 'dirty blood,'" continued Ariadne, as if trying to talk herself out of what they were about to do.

Ariadne saw Sirius's fist clench around his wand when she uttered the words "dirty blood." "I hope Snivellus poisons himself with his own potion so we never have to deal with the idiocy that comes out of his mouth again."

"Don't say that, Sirius," said Ariadne quietly.

Sirius turned to look at her, and she noticed the grip on his wand relaxed at the sound of her saying his name. "I can't make him take back what he said, but the next best thing would be watching you destroy him at something he thinks he's good at."

"I didn't think comments like that would mean much to you. I mean, you don't actually wish you were in Slytherin, do you? Especially considering how Slytherins have been going these days. It's hardly a legitimate house any more," commented Ariadne.

Sirius looked at her as if she had missed something completely obvious in a way that was amused, and slightly pitying, and maybe a little…affectionate? "I take 'not-good-enough-for-Slytherin' as the highest form of compliment, Morrigan. Ever since I learned what Slytherin House was and that my entire family was in it, I wished for nothing more than to not be in that house."

"So you're about to voluntarily put yourself into a deathlike coma…just to humiliate Snape?"

Sirius looked away but continued to walk briskly alongside her. "Well, I think you might underestimate a little how much pleasure I take in humiliating Snivellus. But mostly, it's his choice of language towards you that I find unforgivable."

Ariadne failed to disguise her surprise for the second time that day. "Are you… _defending_ me?"

Sirius sighed. "I know you're going to say, 'I don't need anyone to stand up for me, especially not a man,' or something along those lines. Just let me do this one thing. For both of us."

Ariadne had opened her mouth to express precisely that thought, but closed it. Sirius was coming to know her unnervingly well. "Well, perhaps 'defend' wasn't the most accurate choice of words, considering that you'll be unconscious on the floor in a deep coma for most of this. Not the typical behavior of a gallant knight defending the lady," she said instead.

"But when have we ever been typical?" rejoined Sirius, eyes dancing.

Ariadne looked at the floor, not sure how to respond to his demonstration of loyalty towards her. Sirius seemed to know what she was thinking (again.) "You stood up to Clarice for us," he said in a low voice. "Don't think I didn't notice. I'm only doing the same."

They had arrived at the dungeons at the base of the Astronomy Tower. Ariadne abruptly changed the subject to avoid answering Sirius. "You know, I'm almost certain Snape is half-blood himself. Half-bloods are always the most insecure about their blood status, and the most obsessed with being 'pure.' If a such thing as 'pure-blood' even exists anymore."

"I imagine you're probably right," said Sirius, now gazing down the dimly lit corridor. As if on cue, a shadowy figure in overlarge robes emerged from the darkness, carrying a small flask.

Sirius ran his fingers through his dark hair in his customary way. "Let's do this, Morrigan."

"I've brought an impartial witness to judge our contest and guard against any…foul play," said Snape silkily, gesturing toward a tall, skinny Ravenclaw with a Quidditch badge affixed to his robes.

It was Clarice's boyfriend, the Ravenclaw chaser Florian Clarke.

Ariadne recognized him instantly and glanced at Sirius to confirm that he had too. Florian nodded at her curtly in greeting. "Miss Morrigan." He then extended his hand toward Sirius and said in a soft, rather haughty voice, "And I don't believe we've met…?"

Ariadne knew that Florian's polite stranger act was a pretense, because due to one or another of his magical, rebellious, or amorous exploits, every single person in Hogwarts castle knew who Sirius Black was. Florian was simply making it clear how little he thought of Sirius.

"Sirius Black," answered Sirius, unsmiling and gripping Florian's hand rather firmly, Ariadne noticed.

"Pleasure," responded Florian, with very little of said emotion showing on his face.

"I truly wish I could say the same," said Sirius dryly. Fortunately, Florian chose not to respond.

"So," said Ariadne, already tired of the formalities and ready to move on to business, "we should agree on a dose to administer to our subjects. One-half of a fluid ounce should be more than sufficient, at least for a potent brew." She couldn't help looking at Snape while saying this. One-half of a fluid ounce would work if the potion was brewed to precisely the right potency, but wouldn't cut it for a weak draught. "I estimate my potion will take effect almost instantly and last for thirty minutes."

"Thirty-five," answered Snape in a cold voice.

"Well, whoever's draught lasts longer will have that count toward their marks," said Ariadne. "I've brought a thermometer—" she held up the small magical device—"as a qualifying Draught of Living Death should reduce the subject's body temperature below 30 degrees. There should also be no perceptible signs of breathing, pulse or a heartbeat. The subject should be completely immobile. Their state should be virtually indistinguishable…from death."

She turned to Florian. "Are you confident you can identify the signs of a Draught of Living Death?" she asked.

Florian's otherwise expressionless mouth curled into a slight sneer. "I've opened a potions textbook since fourth-year, if that's what you're asking."

Ariadne resisted the urge to roll her eyes and nodded. She at last held up the vial of liquid stowed in her pocket. "Exactly one-half of a fluid ounce," she said, holding it up to Snape. Snape said nothing, but merely held up his own identical vial.

"Whenever you're ready, then," said Ariadne. She turned to Sirius. "Last chance to change your mind, Black."

He grinned at her. "I've never looked forward to something so much in my life."

"You're going to stiffen and collapse as soon as you drink this, so you might as well start off laying down to minimize the damage," she said, kneeling to the floor and offering her lap.

Sirius acquiesced and settled himself slowly and carefully against her. Ariadne now found herself in the unexpectedly intimate position of cradling Sirius Black's head in her lap. Slightly flustered, she grabbed the flask of potion and handed it to him. Seemingly unperturbed by the entire situation, Sirius merely winked at her, said "Bottoms up!" and drained the flask. At the same time just behind her, Snape drank his own potion. Ariadne tried to relax. There was nothing more to do but wait.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26: Void**

Ariadne felt Sirius's skin grow cold and the rise and fall of his chest gradually cease. She checked the pulse in his wrist and found that that had stopped too, though her own had accelerated. Holding Sirius's lifeless body in her arms was producing a slew of emotional reactions Ariadne hadn't anticipated. Rationally, she knew that he wasn't really dying and that he would be fine once the effects of the potion wore off. She was also confident beyond a shadow of a doubt that her potion was exactingly and perfectly brewed and would cause him no harm.

Then why did she feel her heart sink and settle into her stomach like a block of lead as she gazed over his closed eyes and touched his stiff, icy hands?

Ariadne didn't have much time to ponder her feelings, however, because she felt the thin tip of a wand pressing against her throat. Florian bent down to whisper into her ear. "Yaxley and Clarice have a message they would like me to pass on to you. You are to consider yourself very lucky to have escaped the Forbidden Forest unharmed. What happened to your friend Potter is just a small taste of the suffering you will all face if you attempt to interfere with us again. If you have even a fraction of the intelligence of your cousin, you will not cross Yaxley and his followers again."

He jabbed his wand a bit more firmly into her windpipe. "Tell the blood traitor." He released her and turned away.

Naturally, Ariadne wasn't going to let anyone threaten her and get away without consequences. " _Expelliarmus!"_ Florian's wand flew out of his hand, hit the dungeon wall and clattered to the floor. He lunged for it and grabbed it in time to block her next spell. They traded curses with Florian still crouching on the floor. But his less-than-advantageous position gave Ariadne an edge. She hit him in his wand arm and he dropped his wand again, wincing in pain. Ariadne advanced on him with her wand pointed. "You can take a message back to Yaxley and your backstabbing girlfriend. You're not messing with ordinary Hogwarts kids. I just created a potion that would convince a fully-qualified witch or wizard that you're dead, and I'm capable of so much more. We're not intimidated by you." She was tempted to hex him again, but instead gestured with her wand that he should leave. Florian scrambled up and fled down the corridor.

Ariadne pocketed her wand and sat beside Sirius again to wait out the remainder of the half-hour that he would be, for all intents and purposes, dead. Snape lay on the floor in a similar state behind her. She supposed she could take up Florian's role and check his vital signs to ensure that his Draught of Living Death had worked as intended, but she doubted that he would trust her word. Besides, she had little desire to touch Snape's cold, pale body, whereas the sight of Sirius's seemed to have trapped her in place. She didn't want to turn her back on him for even a moment. Despite the absence of color in his cheeks, he somehow still looked handsome, with his shaggy black hair fanned out gracefully on the floor and his sharp cheekbones like carved marble. Ariadne had always been unable to get past his arrogant attitude to see the attractiveness everyone talked about, but since getting to know Sirius properly, she could no longer deny her attraction to him, even to herself. She thought about his easy carelessness when discussing advanced magic, his flushed, disheveled face at the end of their duel, the way his voice would get husky and low when he asked her to trust him. Or the proximity of his face when she coached him on dueling, and the intensity of his gaze that night in these very same dungeons…

Lost in her thoughts, Ariadne barely noticed when Sirius began stirring and signs of life returned to his body. She grabbed the flask of Regenerating Serum in her pocket, which would help speed up his recovery. She gently elevated his head onto her lap so he would be able to drink. His eyes fluttered and he murmured, barely audible, "You're almost criminally beautiful, Morrigan."

"What?" Ariadne almost dropped the flask. Sirius just smiled at her hazily. Waking up from a deathlike coma could be confusing and people were known to say bizarre things in the recovery period. At least, that's what Ariadne told herself. She unstoppered the flask and held it up to his lips. "Drink this, it will help you regain sensation and movement faster."

Sirius took a few sips and soon was able to begin flexing his hands and sitting up straighter. Meanwhile, Ariadne remembered that an immobilized Severus Snape should be coming to life behind her. She walked over to his still-lifeless form. There was absolutely no way that Snape's Draught lasted longer than hers. She had analyzed and researched the working of this potion more thoroughly than she believed any Hogwarts student ever had. Sirius, now able to stand, had gotten up and followed her.

She bent down to feel his pulse. It was beating, and his skin was warm. "He's faking," she said with disgust. Sirius kicked him in the side. "Get up, git."

Snape woke with a massive scowl. "Where's Clarke? He's supposed to attest to the efficacy of my brew."

"Your little friend threatened me and then ran off when I beat him in a duel," Ariadne informed him.

"What?" Sirius seemed alarmed by this revelation. He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Ariadne, what happened? Are you okay?"

"Black, I'm fine. He's an even more pathetic duelist than he is Chaser."

"I should have been there to help you."

"You were flat on the floor in a self-induced magical coma."

Sirius tilted his head to acknowledge the validity of this point.

"Anyway, I'll tell you more about it later. Snape, our contest is void. Your 'impartial arbiter' tried to hex me and you've been pretending to be in a coma for who knows how long. I'd leave with whatever scrap of pride you have left."

Snape got up and scowled at her again. "I don't need to prove my superiority to a Gryffindor prefect who's only half-witch and a vagabond who's been kicked out of a wizarding family." He skulked away with his robes flapping behind him.

"Pleasant, that one," said Sirius, looking after Snape with distaste. "Now, what exactly happened while I was out?"

"Let's go somewhere else to talk it over. You should be getting some rest, as well, after what you just took."


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27: Need**

"This is good. We've now confirmed my hunch that Florian is in Yaxley's gang too. Every time they try to scare us off, not only do they not succeed, but we gain more valuable information."

Ariadne, Sirius, James and Lupin were huddled in their customary corner of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall for late dinner the following day. Ariadne and Sirius were updating the other two on what had transpired the previous evening, and what that meant for the growing rivalry between the Marauders and Yaxley's band of dark wizards.

"I still wish I had been there—or rather, conscious. I put you in a dangerous and vulnerable position, leaving you alone with Clarke," said Sirius broodingly.

"Have I not amply demonstrated by this point that I can take care of myself?" asked Ariadne rhetorically.

"Morrigan kicks ass," added James helpfully.

"After what happened in the Forbidden Forest, I shouldn't encourage you to take risks like that any more."

"Stop making yourself personally responsible for everything that happens. It was my stupid hotheadedness standing up to Snape that put us in that position in the first place," said Ariadne.

"If you weren't on Yaxley's watchlist before, you certainly are now," said Sirius. "I can only imagine what you said to Florian in response to his little 'message.'"

"Don't fret, Black. I properly defended the reputation of the Marauders and told Yaxley to sod off," answered Ariadne.

"Morrigan kicked YOUR ass," added James, looking at Sirius.

Ariadne raised her eyebrows at Sirius to indicate her agreement with James. Sirius sighed. "Okay, Morrigan didn't need my help. We just aren't supposed to be continuing my track record of placing you all in risky situations."

"It's going to be a bit hard to avoid. After all, we do go to school with these people. We're brought into proximity with them all the time, whether we like it or not. Even more so, now that we know they're in multiple houses, and not just Slytherin," responded Ariadne.

"Clarice was giving me a stare that could kill a basilisk in Herbology today," corroborated James.

"Yaxley and his followers can't risk open war when the Hogwarts administration is still not on their side," said Lupin slowly.

"The Hogwarts professors have done nothing to stop Yaxley's cronies in their campaign of intimidation and harassment," said Sirius dismissively.

"Well, they haven't stopped the underground organizing and won't admit that these are coordinated attacks targeting Muggle-borns. But if they see a student attacking another in any context, they have to intervene," said Lupin.

"So basically, they won't acknowledge that this is an ideologically-driven movement of blood purity inspired by You-Know-Who himself, but they might still stick up for us if Yaxley tried to curse us in Charms class," said Ariadne.

"Precisely," agreed Lupin. "Hence, the ambush in the Forbidden Forest and all the veiled threats and secret messages."

"So they couldn't just take me out in the dungeons yesterday. Because that would certainly garner the attention of the staff," concluded Ariadne.

"It was still dangerous," argued Sirius. "I mean, look what they did to James's arm."

James, for the moment at least, seemed more preoccupied with his mashed potatoes than his injured arm.

"What I really can't believe is that you two decided to dose Sirius with an untested batch of Draught of Living Death," added Lupin in mild exasperation. "That was probably the most risky thing you did last night."

Ariadne and Sirius shared a slightly guilty glance. "My potion was perfectly safe. Besides, we had a point to prove."

"And what was that? That you both have even bigger potions egos than Snivellus?" teased James after a gulp of mashed potato.

"I trust Morrigan's potion-making abilities completely, and yes, they are superior to greaseball's, and I think that was a lesson he needed to be taught," said Sirius with just a hint of defensiveness.

"Besides, he made some truly unforgivable comments about our blood status…and other things," added Ariadne.

Lupin smiled. "You two really have more in common than I think you realize."

Ariadne was desirous of steering the conversation away from her supposed similarities with Sirius. "Do you think Snape is in the group as well?"

"No, I don't think so," said Sirius slowly. "At least, not yet. He seemed as surprised as you and I about Florian Clarke's little fight and flight. It looks like he was merely Yaxley's pawn and a convenient means of delivering a message."

"I'm admittedly a bit surprised he hasn't been recruited yet," said Lupin. "He seems like the ideal candidate."

"Maybe he exceeds their grease quota," sniggered James.

Ariadne frowned. "I agree with you, Black, I don't think he was in on the plan, but it does seem odd that he wouldn't have joined the group yet. He could be the poster-child for pure-blood fanaticism."

"It's certainly another question to add to our list," said Sirius, brow furrowed in thought.

There was a momentary lull in the conversation. James inhaled the last of his mashed potatoes and began gathering his things. "Quidditch practice in thirty minutes," he clarified.

The rest of the group began getting up as well, Ariadne muttering about all the studying she was behind on. As they left the Great Hall together and climbed the maze of staircases and hallways that would take them to the Gryffindor Common Room, Ariadne couldn't help but notice the extra attention she was getting from other students—knowing looks, gossipy whispers, envious glances from girls. She guessed that her new affinity for the Marauders had by now spread around the school, and it wasn't surprising that it was causing a bit of a stir. Ariadne had never sought the social spotlight, but was inevitably known to many as the exacting prefect, top scorer in every exam and McGonagall's favorite. To see her now join forces with the Hogwarts social elite of hotshots, rebels, and heartbreakers was no less than sensational. Ariadne didn't particularly care what the other students thought of her, but she understood from their perspective why this would be so juicy. Added to that, most were probably under the impression that she and Sirius were an item, or at least hooking up, as he had made abundantly clear in Potions class.

When they reached the left corridor of the seventh floor, which was mercifully empty of curious eyes, Sirius broke her out of her reverie by clearing his throat. "Morrigan, could I have a word with you?"

Ariadne frowned. Anything that Sirius didn't want to discuss in front of Remus and James was probably something she wasn't going to like. Sirius shot his friends a meaningful look and they continued on, though not before James audibly snickered, "I wonder what 'having a word' is a metaphor for."

Ariadne folded her arms, already preparing herself for whatever he was up to. Sirius seemed to pick up on her defensiveness. "Relax, Morrigan. I'm not about to ambush you and insult your blood status. I just wanted to know if you've given any further thought to my proposal that you disguise yourself as Clarice to sneak into one of Yaxley's meetings."

This master plan had nearly been driven out of Ariadne's mind by Snape's challenge and the subsequent drama. "I honestly haven't been able to give it much thought, between Snape's insults, Florian putting his wand to my throat and having to take care of your cold, dead body."

"C'mon, Morrigan. This isn't a difficult decision. You're clearly the right person for the job," he said persuasively. "Trust me, if I thought I could do it better, I would."

"Oh, I have no doubt about that."

"Can you, of all people, really blame me for saying that? I'm simply aware of my abilities and not shy about stating when I'm the best at something. It's no different from what you do all the time with your exams and essays."

"There's a difference between confidence and arrogance, Black."

"Oh really? Then what was 'my Draught of Living Death is perfect, and I dare you to do better'?"

"The difference between confidence and arrogance," said Ariadne deliberately and slowly, advancing on Sirius, "is that confidence is backed up by reality, while arrogance is based on exaggeration and delusion."

She stopped when she was eye level with him and about a foot away. "The assertion that my Draught of Living Death is perfect is a fact, backed up the fact that you're standing here in front of me, completely unharmed, when less than 24 hours ago, your heart had stopped beating and your pulse was nonexistent."

"Now arrogance," she continued, "is claiming that you can ace our Transfiguration final without studying."

"Morrigan, I assure you that will be no problem."

"But here's the crucial detail that marks the difference between confidence, and arrogance. You see, your statement isn't supported by fact."

"I'd like to call your attention to the _fact_ that I've already anticipated one of McGonagall's exam questions. If you recall the little note I left you in one of your precious Transfiguration textbooks, she is almost certainly going to ask us to transform the color of a small rodent. And I have amply demonstrated my proficiency at that task," countered Sirius.

"That's only a guess," stated Ariadne dismissively. "Even if it is a good one. That's the thing, Black. You gamble on probabilities and likelihoods. And coast through a lot of life on your popularity and good looks. I leave nothing to chance."

Sirius arched an eyebrow. "What's this about my good looks?"

"That's beside my point. If you look at the actual, proven record, not your guesses and promises and claims, you'll find that your statement doesn't have much to rest on."

"And why is that?"

"Because when you look at the Transfiguration scores on our finals since fourth year, I've placed ahead of you. Every. Time."

Sirius moved even closer, eyes full of spark. "And this is where you fail to see the difference between coursework and reality. There's school, and then there's real life. And not everything is a test you can prepare for, Ariadne Morrigan."

Ariadne held his gaze, trying not to lose herself in his intense dark eyes and the playful smirk hovering around his lips. It felt like something that had been building in her for weeks was about to burst in an uncontrolled, explosive, unpredictable kind of way.

And it did.

She grabbed Sirius by the front of his robes and pinned him to the wall behind them, crushing her lips into his. If Sirius was surprised, it was only momentary, because he soon responded with equal enthusiasm.

He sank his fingers into her long, luscious hair, and with his other hand grabbed her waist to press her closer to him. Ariadne's senses were on fire. She felt the heat emanating from his body as her hands grazed the solid chest under his robes, and was acutely aware of his hands slipping under hers to brush the bare skin where her blouse and skirt met. In one of the brief pauses to catch their breath, Sirius murmured into her ear, "Jesus Christ, Morrigan. _Finally_."

Ariadne had no idea what she was thinking or planning to do next past feverishly snogging Sirius Black in the middle of an empty corridor, with Barnabas the Barmy rolling his eyes and casting them disgusted glances across the way. Fortunately, the castle seemed to have something in mind.

Because their bodies were so close together, Ariadne felt when something seemed to shift in the wall behind Sirius. He stuck out a hand to support them both, but instead of meeting stone castle wall, his hand landed on a doorknob, which twisted under his grip.

They stumbled and fell backwards into an open doorway, Ariadne landing right on top of Sirius. For a second they were both to stunned to move. Then Ariadne awkwardly propped herself up on her elbows and knees to get up. Sirius seemed a little reluctant to alter their position of intimate proximity, but followed suit. "Where the hell are we?"

Ariadne was thinking the same thing but hadn't expressed it out loud. They were in a cozy, warm circular room with a fireplace crackling merrily at one end. There was a table with a few books—some looked familiar to Ariadne. And the centerpiece of the room was a beautiful four-poster bed hung with scarlet and gold. The room seemed to be an odd cross between the Gryffindor common room and a dormitory.

"I swear this room didn't exist five minutes ago," said Sirius. He was now fumbling with a ragged scrap of parchment. The Marauder's Map unfolded in front of him. "It's not on the map, either."

"It must be a magical room that only exists under certain circumstances," murmured Ariadne, still looking around. "It wouldn't be on your map if you didn't know it was here."

"The Marauder's Map is very comprehensive," said Sirius defensively.

Ariadne walked around and began touching the walls, as if to determine if they were real. " _Incantatem revelio,"_ she said, flicking her wand. Nothing happened.

"Morrigan…you might want to see this," said Sirius, staring at the map and now frowning.

Ariadne walked over to him and looked at the map. "We're not on the map anymore," he said.

"What?"

"We've disappeared off the map. I can't find our dots anywhere." His brow furrowed even further. "Do you think we've left the castle grounds? Like a secret passageway?"

"Somehow, I don't think so…We didn't travel anywhere. We just fell through this door."

"We could have been magically transported."

"Travel in and out of Hogwarts grounds is tightly restricted by various enchantments. That's why you can't Apparate within the grounds. Pretty much the only ways to get in and out are by thestral or on foot."

"Well, you're the expert."

Ariadne was now examining the small stack of books on the table. To her surprise, many of her favorite historical and theoretical texts were there. _Hogwarts, A History_ was in the stack as well as a lesser-known favorite from the 18th century, _Founders and Fictions: The Mysteries of Hogwarts School_. Seeing the title jogged something in her memory.

"I think I know where we are."

"Feel free to enlighten me at your leisure."

Ariadne shot him a look. For someone she had just been passionately kissing a moment before, he could be so annoying. "Hogwarts lore sometimes speaks of a room that comes and goes at the user's need. It's only a legend, and no one in recent memory has been able to prove its existence. But it's thought that one of the founders or perhaps an early student created a magical room that only comes into being when a Hogwarts student or staff really needs it."

"So you think this is that room?"

"It makes sense. It's a complicated and ancient kind of magic where the space is conjured by psychological need, and it takes its shape from the memories and consciousness of the person that needs it. It would explain why it's not on the map and why you don't know about it—because if we come back to this precise spot in the seventh-floor corridor tomorrow…"

"There won't be anything here."

"Exactly."

"Not bad, Morrigan."

She deflected the compliment. "The only question is, why did it appear for us, and why did it take this form? What do we need?"

Sirius looked highly amused. "Morrigan, for such a brilliant witch, you can be so oblivious."

"What do you mean?"

Sirius gestured at the magnificent four-poster bed. "I think it's fairly obvious for what purpose this room was created."

Ariadne was abruptly flooded with all the sensations she had been overwhelmed by only minutes ago—the heat, Sirius's touch, his lips against hers.

Sirius grinned at her and held out his hand. "Shall we?"

 **A/N: The moment I know you've all been waiting for**


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28: Switch**

Sirius floated back to the common room on a cloud of triumph. At last he had confirmed that Ariadne was as into him as he was attracted to her. Though he thought their mutual attraction had been obvious and undeniable since the Quidditch afterparty, Ariadne's stubbornness, caution and almost Herculean devotion to her studies had kept them at a distance for weeks. For days he'd felt the tension between them building up to an almost unbearable intensity, yet was never quite sure when she would at last reach her breaking point. One thing he knew for sure, was that when she finally decided she wanted him, there would be no hesitation and no going back.

And their encounter had not failed to live up to his very high expectations.

Ariadne kept him on his toes. She was always just a bit quicker, cleverer, tougher and more confident than he expected. She challenged him on everything, from his schoolwork to his magical talent to his social popularity, and this was a new experience for someone who was accustomed to getting his way in most things. Since the Forbidden Forest, he now knew that she was also fiercely loyal and empathetic. Her moral compass always pointed exactly due north, even when it got her into trouble. For all her brilliance and high marks, he couldn't believe sometimes that she couldn't see why she was in Gryffindor House.

Sirius had let his mind wander to some of the finer details of their time together by the time he reached the portrait hole, and he couldn't help but enter the common room with a bit of his easy, languid swagger. James and Remus had claimed a couch next to the fireplace, and he headed toward them, casually running his fingers through is hair, which he knew was a bit more disheveled than usual.

By the time he had sat down James already knew that something had happened. The two of them shared an intuitive bond that he couldn't quite explain, but couldn't be more happy to have with a best friend he considered like family. Remus picked up on James's intuition too.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"I think you mean _who_ ," said James, staring at Sirius and his rumpled hair intently.

"Ah," replied Lupin, understanding now. "Are we going to be privy to the identity of Sirius's latest paramour?"

Sirius merely smiled at them mysteriously. Almost too coincidentally, at that moment, Ariadne appeared at the foot of the staircase to the girls' dormitory and made her way over the portrait hole, carrying an enormous stack of books in her arms. She glanced ever so briefly at the fireplace, saw the Marauders gathered round it, and quickly looked away. Was that a hint of a flush in her cheeks? Sirius couldn't believe how beautiful she was, as if he were seeing her for the first time all over again.

James caught him staring and looked back and forth between Sirius and the portrait hole in disbelief. "It couldn't be…"

"What? I mean, who?" said Remus, correcting himself.

"MORRIGAN?"

Sirius winked at James and shrugged.

Remus hardly seemed surprised, and gave one of his knowing smiles.

James flung the broomstick he had been polishing to the ground and threw up his hands. "In the name of Merlin's crusty knickers! I thought you two were NEVER going to get round to it!"

 **A/N: Just a quick little glimpse from Sirius's POV.**


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29: Revelation**

" _There_ you are!" Ariadne had cornered Sirius in the hallway outside the Charms classroom after class the next day.

Sirius leaned casually against the wall with the tiniest smirk on his lips. "Back looking for more already, love?" he said, quietly enough that the masses of shuffling students around them wouldn't hear.

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "I couldn't find you anywhere this morning. Did you sleep straight through Transfiguration?"

"Had a bit of late night chat with the mates, so I indulged and slept in," said Sirius casually. "You know, lots to catch up on…"

"Please, I'd really rather not imagine how intimately Potter is acquainted with the details of my sex life now," said Ariadne with an internal shudder. "I don't care what you were up to, but you should have been in class. Have you forgotten all about _this?"_ She held up a thick sheaf of parchment and shook it slightly.

Sirius raised an eyebrow.

"The Transfiguration project, Mr. 'You-Can't-Prepare-For-Everything.' Term will be over in a month, and we still have a lot to do."

"Your ability to bludgeon the fun out of anything with a troll-sized club of schoolwork never ceases to amaze me."

"As much as you think of school as a castle full of ready-made fans, beautiful girls to snog and rivalries to fight, some of us are in fact here to learn something."

"Oh, I think I learned something last night, and it wasn't in a classroom."

"You seem to think you know me well, Black, so there's no way you could honestly expect me to let you off the hook just because we hooked up," answered Ariadne, crossing her arms.

"Right, I forgot, no more 'coasting by on my good looks,'" said Sirius, bowing his head in mock humility.

"If you're done grappling with your own ego, I'll see you in the common room after dinner. And here's some light reading for your free period." She dropped two heavy volumes into his arms, which he caught just before they fell to the floor, and left.

Ariadne grilled Sirius on the particulars of animal transfiguration for an hour before she allowed them to take a break. Sirius immediately put his feet up on the table in front of them, which was covered in parchment scraps, quills and textbooks, and slouched deeply into the couch.

"Well, you might do reasonably well on that portion of the practical," concluded Ariadne.

"I'll admit, I don't remember being ridden this hard by anyone else at Hogwarts, student or professor," said Sirius.

"Your innuendos are getting lazy," replied Ariadne, not looking at him and flipping through some notes on object-to-animal transfiguration.

"Nah, I think they're just becoming more real, rather than mere insinuation," said Sirius with a mischievous smirk.

"Are you ever going to stop bringing up the fact that I finally slept with you, or..?"

"I'm just reveling in my victory a bit."

"I'm not your conquest, Black."

"Oh, I'm aware. It would be entirely presumptuous of me to think that I could win over Ariadne Morrigan in some kind of game. I've known that since the Quidditch party." He paused. "But I knew we'd end up shagging eventually."

Ariadne put her notes down somewhat brusquely. "If you were so sure, then why didn't you suggest the idea to me weeks ago?"

"Because I knew that if _I_ propositioned you, you'd more than likely reject me. You had to be the one to decide you wanted it, since you need to be in control of everything," explained Sirius matter-of-factly.

Ariadne hated how accurate he was. He had her pinned down. Ariadne tried to resist mind's urge to visualize that in a literal rather than figurative sense, because that would only be proving his point.

"So you've just been waiting and biding your time all this while? Did you have a date set?"

"No, to be honest, I didn't know when exactly you'd finally come around. You're a bit unpredictable in that sense," said Sirius candidly, picking at a loose thread in his robes.

"Well, I suppose I'm glad I could surprise you in some way."

"I'm hoping you'll surprise me in many more ways yet, Morrigan," he said suggestively.

Ariadne didn't respond, mostly because there was nothing left to say that could diffuse the tension between them, and indeed, she doubted that anything within the bounds of appropriate behavior for a crowded common room on a weeknight could.

Luckily, they were rescued from this moment by the appearance of Remus and James.

"Having fun _practicing your Transfiguration_ , kids?" asked James with a wicked smirk.

"James, remind me to work with you on your double entendres," said Sirius, sitting up.

Lupin greeted Ariadne in a friendly manner without making any reference to her sexual activities, which she appreciated. They seated themselves opposite Sirius and Ariadne, and then James began a series of silent communications with Sirius, which, though obvious to all, Ariadne couldn't hope to interpret. Sirius straightened up properly and leaned in close to the group.

"I think it's time to tell her," James finally announced out loud.

"Remus?" said Sirius with a nod towards him, asking for his approval.

"I'm in agreement," said Remus with a small, tight smile. Ariadne noticed that despite his friendly greeting, he seemed to have tensed up slightly in anticipation of what his friends were about to say.

"Well, Ariadne," said James, rubbing his hands together, "it's time for you to become a full Marauder. It's only proper, now that you've bedded one."

"If sleeping with one of you was the only requirement for induction into you cult, then there would be quite a few more women here," Ariadne pointed out.

"Hmm, I guess you're right," said James, frowning as if he were trying to do some simple arithmetic in his head. "But Sirius did say that you're—"

"What James is trying to say," interrupted Sirius, casting him a look, "is that no one beyond us has ever been offered a place among the Marauders before. You're about to be privy to certain…information that has not, and must not, leave this group."

"Ariadne, you've proven yourself a loyal and true friend to us," said Remus quietly. "I trust you with my life."

James was grinning, as if he couldn't wait to share whatever their secret was. Ariadne locked eyes with Sirius. He held her intense gaze and seemed to be trying to communicate something to her, but she wasn't sure what.

"Well, it's about time that you've learned to trust me, especially after the Clarice fiasco. Let's get this over with," she said, feeling the tiniest bit anxious herself.

James glanced at Sirius, as if wondering where to start. "Well, I guess what we want to tell you is that…"

"The first thing you should know, Ariadne, is that I'm a werewolf," cut in Lupin, keeping his voice down to a discreet level.

"I know."

All three of them stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded.

"What do you mean, you know? Did James let something slip when I wasn't around?" demanded Sirius. James looked offended at this accusation of indiscretion.

"No, of course not. I figured it out long ago. The monthly illnesses that always coincided with the full moon, the lingering tiredness, your withdrawn personality…all in someone so young. It was the only possible explanation. I've known since third year," explained Ariadne.

Remus smiled wanly, as if he, once again, wasn't very surprised by Ariadne's revelations.

"I swear I haven't told anyone," she reassured Remus directly.

"If this changes your feelings about our friendship, I entirely understand," said Remus, looking down at his hands, which he was kneading together.

"Remus, I've known all along, and I still wanted to be your friend. I'm glad that I am now," she said, briefly squeezing one of his hands in her own.

He acknowledged her with a nod, seeming relieved by her nonchalant reception of his identity.

"Well, that was a bit anticlimactic," said James with a certain level of disappointment.

"At least you can start referring to Remus' 'furry problem' in front of her now," said Sirius dryly.

"That is a perfectly opaque and suitable euphemism," replied James indignantly.

"Anyway, Ariadne, I suppose we should've known better than to think anything that goes on in this castle escapes your notice. But that isn't all we wanted to tell you," continued Sirius.

Ariadne waited patiently for the next bombshell.

"James and I are becoming Animagi."


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30: Like Nothing We've Ever Done Before**

Ariadne began gathering up her books and notes to leave. James, Sirius and Remus merely looked at her for a few moments, confused by her utter lack of response to their pronouncement. Finally, Sirius spoke up. "Where the hell are you going, Morrigan?"

"The library," responded Ariadne, without emotion.

"You're not even going to _ask_ us about how we're planning to become Animagi?"

"Or threaten to report us to McGonagall?" asked James in disbelief.

Ariadne stopped organizing her sheafs of parchment for a moment and looked at them with a tired sort of exasperation. "Look, I really don't have time for any elaborate Marauder pranks right now. Between the Transfiguration project and studying and all this plotting against Yaxley, I have my hands full. Perhaps you should take a second look at your priorities as well." She got up to leave.

"Wait!" Sirius grabbed her wrist. "Morrigan, this isn't a joke."

She impatiently shook him off, feeling increasingly frustrated, and though she hated to admit it, a little hurt. "I didn't know that inducting me into the Marauders was just a clever way to make me the butt of more of your pranks," she said, beginning to lose her stiff, emotionless veneer.

"Ariadne, listen to me. We've already got the Mandrake leaves. We're going to start them soon."

Ariadne allowed herself to sink back into the couch, as if processing this information had drained her of the energy to remain standing. "You're not saying you're actually serious about this?"

Sirius, seeming to know that she would trust the hard, cold evidence of books more than anything else, unwrapped a volume he had stored in his bag, with brown paper concealing the title. It was _The Sorceress of Avalon_ , a medieval account of the life of Morgan Le Fay, normally kept in the Restricted section of the library. Ariadne had frequently perused the book and knew it well. She knew, for example, that it included multiple chapters detailing the process by which Morgana learned to become one of the earliest known Animagi. Sirius handed the book to her and she gripped the familiar thick leather binding.

"Are you _insane_?" she hissed.

"To a rational observer, it would seem so," answered Lupin wryly.

"Morrigan, we've been over this. It's not insanity, it's just a little risk to keep things exciting," said Sirius, his eyes glimmering with spark now that he had her attention. "Nothing worth doing doesn't involve breaking a few rules."

"I can actually think of many things worth doing that don't involve breaking any rules. Such as, not getting expelled from Hogwarts, not violating restrictions on underage use of magic, and not going to Azkaban for the rest of your life," said Ariadne.

"You consistently underestimate our intelligence, Morrigan. We're obviously not stupid enough to get caught," said Sirius, crossing one of his legs over the other.

"You consistently _over_ estimate yours. Keeping a Mandrake leaf in your mouth for an entire month? Going out in the middle of a lightning storm? How are you possibly going to do all of this without a professor or anyone else noticing?"

"The same way we're illegally brewing Polyjuice Potion in the potions classroom right under Slughorn's nose," responded Sirius with a smirk.

"This is different."

"You've said that every time we propose another scheme for the improvement of ourselves or of Hogwarts, and yet..."

"And what, Black?"

He leaned back into the sofa and folded his arms with an air of satisfaction. "And yet, you're still here."

"I think there might be something else besides Marauder plots keeping Morrigan around," snickered James, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Ariadne shot him a withering look, then turned to Sirius. "This is on a completely different level of insanity. This is advanced magic well beyond what most N.E.W.T.-qualified wizards even dream of. This is risking permanent deformity or death, if it goes wrong. This isn't just breaking some school rules, it would be breaking the highest wizarding law. This is—"

"The most epic Marauder adventure yet. Like nothing we've ever done before," concluded Sirius, eyes gleaming.

"Is this about proving yourself? Or trying to impress me? What in the world could impel you to—" Ariadne's eyes landed on Remus, who was staring down at his knotted fingers again. Then she understood.

"Where do you go during your transformations, Remus?" she asked quietly.

"Out to the edges of Hogsmeade. The run-down hut they're calling the Shrieking Shack," he responded.

"And I don't suppose your planning to register yourselves?" asked Ariadne, now directing the question at Sirius.

"That would defeat the purpose, love," murmured Sirius.

Ariadne was silent for a moment. Then she grabbed a piece of parchment and began scribbling on it rapidly. "What's this?" asked Sirius as she handed it to him.

"Required reading," she answered briskly. "I'll get a few more from the library this evening. And don't even _think_ about trying to haggle for some Quidditch match or party or any nonsense like that. This was _your_ idea." She gathered her bag and books again to leave.

"So I take it this means…you'll help us?" said Sirius.

"There's no way you're pulling this off without my help," said Ariadne by way of answering. "In fact, it's beyond any of our capabilities individually. But with me, and all of our talents combined, we may just be able to do it."

"And does this mean you'll not only be helping, but…participating?"

Ariadne gave him rather condescending look. "Why would I do all the work for none of the benefit?"

She got up and swept through the portrait hole. Sirius was examining the booklist she had left him. In the bottom left-hand corner, like an unrelated note from before, was neatly printed _Tomorrow. 8pm._


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31: Rendezvous**

Sirius was already waiting for Ariadne inside the mysterious vanishing room on the seventh floor when she arrived, after concentrating on the memory of the last time they had been in the room and turning the doorknob that appeared in the blank stretch of wall.

"I've never seen you this punctual before," she commented, dropping her heavy bag to the floor.

"Wouldn't want to keep the queen of scheduling waiting," replied Sirius from the four-poster bed, where he was lounging with his arms behind his head.

"So is that the secret to getting you to come to Transfiguration on time? Promise to make out with you in the hallway five minutes before class?"

"I certainly wouldn't object," said Sirius with a smirk, jumping down from the bed and crossing the short distance to where she stood. She pressed a hand against his chest to stop him before he got too close. "I don't have all the time in the world, Black. Ancient Runes exam tomorrow, so let's keep it quick."

"Mmm, let's see how you feel about that in about ten minutes," he said into her hair, now gently running his hands up and down her waist.

Ariadne couldn't deny that there was something about his touch that seemed to distort her sense of time. Everything seemed to slow down, yet she couldn't move fast enough, and when it was over, she wished it could have lasted longer.

She scrambled to push Sirius's robes off his shoulders and grabbed his tie to fumble with the knot. Sirius, on the other hand, showed a much greater sense of control, now slowly unbuttoning her blouse while brushing his lips against her throat.

Still impatient but confounded in her frantic attempt to disrobe him by the sheer number of individual buttons on his shirt, Ariadne gave in for the moment and let herself succumb to the pace Sirius had set and all the sensations he was provoking. He slowly backed her into the bedpost nearest the fireplace as he finished undoing the buttons on her blouse. Then he moved his lips ever so slowly from her throat, lower and lower, down to her exposed chest. Ariadne fleetingly wondered how many girls he had done this with. Judging from his skillful ease and confidence, it was not an insignificant number. But as she roughly pulled his mouth to hers, she realized she didn't care. If it had been fifty girls, she wanted to be the fifty-first.

…

"So, Morrigan? What do you think?"

With great difficulty, Ariadne pulled herself away from the Arithmancy lecture she had been deeply immersed in. "What do I think about what?" she snapped.

"Have you been listening to anything I've been saying for the past five minutes?" whispered Sirius, seeming a bit annoyed that he didn't have her full attention.

"Unlike some, I actually attend class in order to pay attention to the lecture, not as a social hour for party planning," Ariadne said between gritted teeth.

"Ah, so you _did_ catch at least part of what I said."

"I tuned you out after I heard the word 'party.'"

"The details aren't that important," said Sirius, waving his hand dismissively. "Just wanted to know if you'll come."

"Come to what?"

"The masquerade, obviously."

When Ariadne continued to look puzzled, Sirius sighed under his breath. "Honestly, Morrigan, sometimes I think you're living on Neptune in its retrograde orbit. How else could you forget that tomorrow is Halloween?"


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32: Hogwarts, A Mystery**

Ariadne was never able to precisely track down the origins of the Hogwarts Halloween masquerade, but based on the popularity of masquerades in Europe in the 16th century, she guessed that the tradition dated back to around then. Histories of Hogwarts throughout the 17th and 18th century abounded with depictions of masquerade balls. Although it seemed like a curiously antiquated way to celebrate Halloween, the masquerade was still wildly popular among Hogwarts students. Aside from the wizarding community's fondness for the old and archaic—time didn't seem to move quite as fast for wizards as for Muggles—Ariadne attributed this popularity to a few important factors.

One, the masquerade differed from other Hogwarts parties in that it wasn't limited to a single house. Unlike Quidditch match or House Cup celebrations, the masquerade wasn't quite so partisan, and the unofficial "hosting house" would sneak other students into their common room, allowing for much more inter-House fraternizing than usual.

Two, that the masquerade was still, if begrudgingly, tolerated by Hogwarts staff on the grounds that it was a 400-year-old "Hogwarts tradition." The staff didn't know about the alcohol-fueled parties or the sneaking in of students from different houses, of course. As far as they were aware, the masquerade consisted of dressing in masks and costumes at Halloween dinner followed by some synchronized gliding by the ghosts. However, for that one night, they did ease the restrictions on students moving about the castle after hours.

The third reason for their continued popularity had to do with Gryffindors' proclivity for turning any kind of holiday or occasion into an opportunity for raucous debauchery. Gryffindor House had convinced the other Houses to let them host the masquerade for the past few years, and the other Houses had agreed (Slytherin, albeit reluctantly) because the Gryffindors were just that good at throwing a party. (Ariadne recalled that Ravenclaw had hosted during her second year of Hogwarts and the event was strictly historically accurate and so boring that the other Houses refused to let them host ever again.) Gryffindor parties were legend and every other Hogwarts student wanted a taste. As the Gryffindor Common Room couldn't accommodate the students of all four houses, they were selective in who they allowed to come from the other houses, and invitations were highly coveted.

Ariadne had been vaguely aware of Priya helping to create and distribute these invitations a few weeks earlier, but she had no time to give it any further thought, between keeping up with her coursework, getting into all kinds of messy situations with the Marauders, and her new…arrangement with Sirius, as she liked to think of it.

Ariadne wanted to believe that the latter was also her lowest priority and the least distracting of the many things on her plate, but she knew that wasn't quite true. Hooking up with Sirius, thinking about the last time she had hooked up with Sirius, and anticipating the next time she would hook up with Sirius occupied more of her mental space than she would like to admit. He was so much better than any of the boys she had been with before, and even though she left each of their trysts feeling satisfied in a way that no one else had been able to make her feel, it wasn't long before she craved even more.

Ariadne had thought that finally giving in to their mutual attraction would diffuse the intense tension between them, but it didn't seem to have worked. Sirius still annoyed, intrigued, occasionally impressed and frequently attracted her, and he seemed determined as ever to bring out her "Gryffindor side" through risky and ridiculous schemes, and, of course, wild parties.

"Ready for tonight?" whispered a voice in her ear, breaking her out of her reverie.

Ariadne whipped around in her lunchtime seat in the Great Hall. He may have been wearing a red-and-gold mask that covered the top half of his face, but there was no mistaking the shock of short, rumpled jet-black hair that belonged to James Potter. Ariadne discreetly glanced around for his partner-in-crime, as they were usually attached at the hip, but he was nowhere to be seen. James plopped down in the seat next to her and lifted his mask. "So where's yours, Ariadne?"

"James, the masquerade doesn't start until dinner, six hours from now."

"But you _do_ have a mask, right?"

Ariadne sighed. "Yes, I do. It will make its appearance at the proper time."

"Good," said James, drumming his fingers on the table distractedly. "Sirius won't shut up about making sure you'll come. Needs his grand surprise to go off smoothly…"

Suddenly, Ariadne was paying much closer attention. "What surprise?"

Suddenly, James looked much more shifty. "It's nothing, Morrigan. Forget I even said that bit."

"Potter, look at me and tell me the truth," she demanded in her very best prefect voice.

James raised his hands, as if to shield himself her commanding look, but was rescued by the appearance of Sirius himself.

Ariadne didn't waste any time. "What do you have planned for tonight, Black?"

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Why the accusatory tone, Miss Morrigan? Just a night of innocent masked revelry, in the Hogwarts tradition."

"Don't 'Miss' me. You haven't called me that in ages."

"I suppose we are on more…familiar terms than we were a few months ago," replied Sirius, arching an eyebrow suggestively. He loved to toy with her like this, making thinly veiled allusions to their private affair and stoking the heat between them, but in a public setting where they couldn't take things any further.

"So does he only call you 'Miss' in bed, now?" interjected James innocently.

Ariadne ignored him and responded to Sirius instead. "Precisely. So why the formality if you don't have something planned that, as a prefect, I'm not going to like?"

"I didn't realize we were switching roles between friend-to-friend and prefect-to-lowly-Gryffindor," said Sirius, affecting offense. (On her other side, Ariadne heard James mutter "prefect roleplay…kinky" and cackle quietly to himself.)

"You started it by calling me 'Miss Morrigan.'"

"So who am I talking to now? Ariadne the prefect or Ariadne the Marauder?"

Ariadne bit her lip. The question unnerved her more than she liked to admit, striking at the heart of the problem of her falling in with the Marauders. Did becoming friends with Sirius, James and Remus and being a Gryffindor prefect inherently conflict with each other?

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm one person, not some two-faced Janus," answered Ariadne somewhat brusquely, now riffling through History of Magic notes.

"Are you quite sure?" murmured Sirius in her ear, now leaning close on the pretense of picking up a sheet of her notes on the witch burnings of the 17th century. "Because I highly doubt that Ariadne the prefect would have done what we did yesterday evening in a secret castle location that I know you still haven't disclosed to McGonagall."

And just like that, Ariadne was distracted by their sexual tension again. Maybe this wasn't entirely her fault, after all.

Refusing to turn her head towards him, which would have put their faces in quite close proximity, Ariadne shuffled her notes together and responded, "The room doesn't pose a safety concern to the castle since one would have to stumble upon it by accident in a time of need, which is extremely unlikely."

"And yet, we somehow found it."

"Again, that was a fluke. The odds that someone else would also find the room just by being in the right place at the right time are astronomically low."

"So we were just incredibly lucky?"

"In more ways than you know, Black," Ariadne answered in a low voice, chancing a glance at Sirius's deep, intense gaze. His eyes were so dark brown as to be almost black, yet they could light up with an an indescribable spark when they were clashing. Or flirting. Ariadne couldn't really tell the difference any more. "But otherwise, yes. It was pure, random chance that we found the room."

Sirius tilted his head, allowing some of the fringes of his dark hair to fall into his face. "I can't dispute your first point. But the fact that you and I, of all people, were the ones to discover this secret room at that exact moment in time…it just seems too, I don't know, providential to be coincidence."

"What are you getting at?" asked Ariadne, direct as usual.

"I mean, you're probably the only person in the entire castle who could have put the pieces together to identify the room as _the_ room of requirement alluded to throughout accounts of Hogwarts history."

"That is most likely true," said Ariadne indifferently, interpreting Sirius's comments as fact rather than flattery.

"And the books that were on the table…it's almost as if the room _wanted_ you to figure out what it was."

"The room responds to the needs of its users. I wanted to find out what it was, so the room provided the tools I needed."

"I'm just saying, Ariadne, it feels like the castle has a plan for us."

Ariadne paused in her ordering of her history notes to consider this point. "So you subscribe to the sentient castle theory?"

Sirius waved his hand dismissively at her jargon. "I just don't think it's a coincidence that two of the brightest and most loyal students Hogwarts has ever seen were the ones to stumble upon this room."

"What do you mean by 'loyal'?" asked Ariadne suspiciously.

"To the castle. To magical education, to our houses…to Hogwarts itself. You can't deny that you've probably researched the history of this school more thoroughly than anyone except the Pince. And I have committed to plumbing its mysteries using more…practical and hands-on methods. I honestly thought I knew every secret passage and hidden broom closet in this castle from the Astronomy tower to the deepest dungeon before we fell into that room."

Ariadne was still silent, so Sirius prompted her for an answer. "Well, Morrigan? Aren't you going to tell me that my head is inflated and I'm full of bollocks?"

"Your head is definitely inflated," she answered finally. "There's no way we're the only students to have ever discovered the room in all of Hogwarts history. It's more likely that students stumble on it once, in their time of need, and then don't realize they can access the room again, and can't prove its existence to anyone."

She paused. "But the sentient castle theory is intriguing. Many magical historians and scholars who have studied Hogwarts believe that the sum of its bricks and mortar add up to more than just a building. That there is some kind of magical consciousness or agency that animates the castle. I mean, just thinking about the amount of enchanted dynamic elements within it—hundreds of moving, talking portraits, staircases that change location, walls embedded with layers upon layers of spells…" Ariadne trailed off, deep in thought.

"So you agree with me," said Sirius, folding his arms with satisfaction.

"I didn't say that. I just said the theory was interesting," replied Ariadne briskly, now back to her notes.

Sirius sighed. "I'm never going to be able to tear you away from your beloved theory, am I?"

Ariadne nearly smiled. "I'll see you tonight in the Common Room, then?"

Sirius he straightened up in his seat and his eyes regained their sparkle. "9 o'clock in the evening. Don't be late, Miss Morrigan."

 **A/N: Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the Halloween masquerade adventures! They're just going to be coming out closer to Christmas than to Halloween…heh. More shenanigans to follow!**


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33: The Details**

"…and then, he said he wouldn't be able to make it to the next Hogsmeade trip because of a 'family emergency.' _Again."_ Priya threw her hairbrush onto her four poster in frustration. "Ariadne, do you think he's messing with me?"

"Priya, this is Remus we're talking about. He doesn't have an ungentlemanly bone in his body." Ariadne was focusing on weaving the top half of her hair into a braid, which would then be intricately wrapped around her head.

"You're right, but, I don't know…I just can't help but feel like I'm missing something. Like there's a puzzle piece I don't have, and if I did, everything would suddenly make sense. But he's hiding it from me."

Ariadne made a mental note to herself to speak to Remus about disclosing his secret to Priya. Of course, it was very risky, but if they intended to become more serious, then he should be able to trust her.

"I know. Remus has always been a bit mysterious. Kind of closed-off about his family, and things like that. Don't take it personally, 'Riya. He'll come around eventually."

"Thanks, Ari. You always know the right thing to say." Priya buried her face in Ariadne's shoulder.

"Group hug!" announced Sophie, so that she could join in the display of affection as well. Ariadne almost fell over from their combined weight.

"Okay, okay, I love you both too," said Ariadne, hastily extricating herself.

"Ariadne, can I borrow some of that detangling solution you always have hanging around? My hair never recovered from that botched human Transfiguration lesson that was supposed to make it grow."

'Sure Priya, it's in my trunk."

Priya was silent for a few moments as she rummaged through Ariadne's things, but when Ariadne expected to hear a "Got it, thanks!" she only heard silence.

And then a small flask was shoved accusingly under her nose. "Explain."

Ariadne looked down. It was a deep purple concoction she had been brewing and administering to herself for the last few weeks. A contraceptive potion.

Ariadne decided that the best way to handle this was to play it cool. "You didn't honestly think I wasn't going to be safe, did you? I have way too many NEWTs to complete to take any chances."

"It's not THAT Ariadne—of course you're going to be responsible—but why didn't you tell me?"

Ariadne sighed. "Because honestly, Priya, it's not any of your business."

Ariadne hadn't meant to hurt Priya, she was just channeling her characteristic directness. If Ariadne wanted her private life, well, private, that was her prerogative.

"How long has this been going on? When did it happen?" demanded Priya. Sophie was now crowded around Ariadne too, eyes large and earnest.

"Aren't you even going to ask me who the lucky guy is?" said Ariadne wryly.

"Goodness, Ariadne, I'm not daft. Well, actually, maybe I am. I should have been able to tell from all those sultry looks you two keep exchanging across the Common Room. I just thought maybe you were still holding off. For some reason. If Sirius Black had been looking at _me_ like that, I would have jumped his bones last term."

Sophie had figured out that this meant that Ariadne and Sirius were sleeping together and was now bouncing around the dormitory squealing.

"Well, I suppose I finally arrived at the same conclusion," said Ariadne, trying not to smile.

"Are you holding back a smile? IS ARIADNE MORRIGAN SMILING?" Priya practically bellowed, now brandishing the flask the flask at her.

"Careful, Priya, I need to take another dose of that at the end of this week," interjected Ariadne.

"Oh right, sorry," she said, putting it down carefully on Ariadne's bedside table. Next thing Ariadne knew, she was sitting on her own bed, with Priya and Sophie cross-legged at the foot, staring at her expectantly.

"So?"

"So…?" for once, Ariadne didn't know the correct answer.

" _So_ , tell us everything! How did it happen?"

"What's it like dating a Hogwarts' heartthrob?" asked Sophie dreamily.

Ariadne folded her arms. "Okay, let's get one thing straight…again. We are NOT dating."

Priya brushed aside the technicalities with a gesture of her hand. "Okay, call it whatever you want, Ari, dating, shagging, seeing each other, friends plus some extra, it doesn't matter. We all know you're going to end up together in the end." Ariadne frowned. "Just tell us the _details_."

"Is he as good a kisser as Catherine Whipple says?" asked Sophie.

"Definitely," answered Ariadne automatically. "Better."

"Is he better than that Ravenclaw who was using you for answers to the Arithmancy homework?" asked Priya.

"Infinitely better," replied Ariadne, shuddering at that unfortunate episode of her life.

"Is Sirius the only person you've gone all the way with?" asked Priya thoughtfully.

"No. Arithmancy guy too, regretfully."

"What about the pretty Hufflepuff? Marina?"

"We didn't get quite that far."

"I liked Marina," said Priya.

"I did too, but neither of us was looking for anything serious."

Priya and Sophie snickered. Ariadne only belatedly realized why.

"So…anything else you urgently need to know? Or can I leave the interrogation?"

"Do you love him, Ariadne?" asked Sophie in her sweet but penetrating way.

Ariadne was taken aback by the question. "No," she said, stumbling a little and annoyed at herself for it. "No, Sophie, we're just hooking up."

Priya was smirking just a tiny bit and Sophie looked disappointed.

"Sirius is fit, and attractive, and smart, and admittedly, rather good at magic, and clever, and believes in doing the right thing—but it's not like that, we're just friends right now."

Priya shrugged and got up to finish doing her makeup, though Ariadne swore she heard her hum to herself, "Whatever you say, Ariadne," under her breath. Sophie was still staring at Ariadne, but she looked happier now.

"What?" asked Ariadne, trying not to be snippy.

"I'm just imaging your wedding in my head."


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34: Masquerade, Part 1**

Despite the detour into Ariadne's personal life, she, Priya and Sophie were finally ready to head downstairs for the masquerade party, mostly on time. Ariadne at last affixed her mask, a sleek arrangement of black, navy and peacock- blue feathers with gold trimming. Her dress robes were simple: an iridescent layer of blue-purple gauze over regular black robes. Priya's mask was of stunning filigreed gold, while Sophie's was covered in delicate, pretty floral patterns.

Ariadne descended the staircase from the girl's dormitory with her friends with an unusual sense of expectancy weighing on her. She couldn't tell if it was mainly a feeling of her expecting something, or a feeling that she was being expected, or both.

Even though it was just past a few minutes past nine, the masquerade was already in full swing. Ariadne heard voices, laughter, and haunting organ music. She ran her hands along the black, gold and orange tinsel wrapped around the bannisters, and was soon walking through a cloud of magically generated fog. It smelled faintly like pumpkin. When she emerged from the fog at the bottom of the staircase, the scene of the masquerade opened out before her.

Black and white webbing hung from every corner of the walls and furniture, and floating candles illuminated what was otherwise a very dark common room (Ariadne prayed that someone had the foresight to enchant the spiderwebs to be flame-proof.) Someone had kicked the Gryffindor décor up a notch with golden chandeliers burning black flames. Much of the traditionally gold-and-red sofas and armchairs had been draped with black lace. Pumpkins carved with ornate, arabesque patterns decorated the tables laden with food and drinks- spiked pumpkin juice, of course, but also black licorice liqueur and bloodred Firewhisky. Not only students, but ghosts and poltergeists floated among the packed room, almost blending in with the magical fog. This was no hastily put together Quidditch victory party.

Waiting at the foot of the staircase, as if he didn't intend to join the ball until her arrival, was Sirius, the upper half of his face covered by a black velvet mask with silver designs. He offered his arm and Ariadne permitted him to take it.

"Color me impressed, Black. Was this all your doing?"

Sirius smiled but otherwise barely acknowledged the compliment. "Look up, Ariadne."

Ariadne obeyed. She gasped.

The ceiling of the common room was no longer gray stone hung with red and gold drapery. That had disappeared and been replaced with a view of the heavens above. But unlike the ceiling of the Great Hall, which accurately reflected the night sky outside the castle, this was like the view through a powerful magical telescope: nebulae and galaxies swirling in the milky blackness.

Ariadne turned back to Sirius. "But how…?" Sirius held up an ancient, nearly crumbling leather-bound book. She grabbed his arm. "Tell me everything."

…

Ariadne and Sirius were so engrossed in their conversation that they had hardly spoken to or interacted with anyone else at the masquerade. Nestled in a corner next to the staircase to the boys' dormitory, Sirius ensured that Ariadne had a drink in her hand at all times, but otherwise seemed perfectly content with this arrangement.

"But no one has ever quite figured out how the enchantment of the ceiling of the Great Hall works. It's thought to be founder's magic that lived and died with whichever founder discovered it."

"Gryffindor, obviously," said Sirius at the exact moment as Ariadne said, "Most likely Ravenclaw."

There was only the briefest of pauses before they launched into it.

"Godric Gryffindor was clearly the most powerful of the four founders, only he would have been capable of this type of magic."

"One, that statement is entirely disputable, and two, Ravenclaw was an astronomer who was obsessed with studying the cosmos."

"Ravenclaw's 'talents' were in arcane and mostly useless branches of magic, like logic and transfigurational law. She didn't have the raw magical ability to pull off something like the Great Hall ceiling."

"Thank you for alerting me to which topics I should test you on the most before our Transfiguration exam, as you clearly haven't studied them."

"All I'm saying, Morrigan, is that I did this," he pointed to the starry ceiling, "without needing to know any of the fundamental exceptions to transfiguration law."

Ariadne frowned. "But how can you responsibly wield powerful magic if you don't understand how it works?"

"Have I ever seemed particularly responsible to you?" said Sirius, leaning back in his armchair and sipping from his glass of straight Firewhisky.

"Truer words were never spoken under the influence of Veritaserum," muttered Ariadne into her own glass. "So, are you ever going to tell me how you irresponsibly turned the ceiling of the common room into an astronomy textbook?"

"This was the secret," said Sirius with a gleam in his eye, holding up the small, tattered leather volume. He handed it to Ariadne and she thumbed through it, looking at the unfamiliar shapes and symbols.

"I've seen this before. It's held in the ancient manuscripts collection in the library," she said, frowning. She closed it. "It's written in some kind of obscure dialect of ancient runes. No one has been able to decipher it. The codex needed to translate it must have been lost."

"It's not," said Sirius, his lips turning up ever so slightly

"What do you mean? You've found it?"

"No. It's not written in ancient runes at all." Sirius allowed Ariadne to sit in her confusion for a moment. He leaned in closer. "This manuscript was attributed to an ancient Greek wizard, possibly Falco Aesalon, which is why the symbols are assumed to be runes. But what if it wasn't by him—what if the manuscript was actually more recent?"

"And what evidence do you have for that?"

Sirius shrugged. "Just a hunch. Some of the symbols seemed to form patterns when I looked at them from far away. Patterns that almost reminded me of our last Arithmancy homework."

"You did the Arithmancy homework? I thought homework was a waste of your precious time."

"No. But I did look at it. Enough to glean that we were supposed to be learning about the mystical properties of recursive sequences. And sure enough…" He tapped the cover of the manuscript.

"It's not ancient runes at all. It's an arithmetic sequence."

"Precisely. The symbols correspond to numbers, and if you understand how recursivity works, you can crack the code."

"But that would just leave you with a string of numbers."

"Again, some guesswork came into play here. But a sequence this old and elegant…I went back to the greatest Arithmancer of all."

"Bridget Wenlock."

"Naturally. Her journals proved quite a useful resource. If you recall from your studies, the appendices contain indexes matching certain numbers to incantations…"

"Because she theorized a connection between particular numbers and certain types of magic," Ariadne finished. "So you translated the symbols into numbers, and the numbers into spells."

"And as a result, I produced…this," Sirius finished triumphantly, gesturing to the glittering, swirling ceiling.

Ariadne fought the most peculiar urge to jump him right then and there. She attempted to hide this particular feeling, but from the way Sirius's dark eyes seemed to grow even more intense with a hint of suggestiveness, she guessed that he could sense the general direction they were taking.

"I remembered how much you liked the model of the solar system in my room," murmured Sirius, gazing at her from above the lip of his glass.

Ariadne was transported back to that night, and remembered that tiny detail, too—but surely, Sirius hadn't gone to these lengths merely to impress her?

"Have I succeeded?" he asked, as if reading her thoughts.

Before Ariadne could answer, an arm descended around each of them and a gold and scarlet mask, fashioned like a lion, emerged between them.

"You lot seem like you're discussing something brainy and smart, so, could you put your collective intelligences together to explain why two of the most attractive and charismatic students Gryffindor House has to offer are off in a corner ignoring everyone during the biggest party of the year?"

"I was just explaining my little party trick to Morrigan, James," said Sirius somewhat pointedly.

"Well, I'm sure she was absolutely captivated by that raggedy little scrapbook and will be proposing marriage shortly," answered James, clapping Sirius on the back. "But now, my friends, is no time for geeking out over math and dead sorceresses. Tonight is no ordinary night. This is the night when witches' and wizards' powers are at their highest. This is the night when spirits and ghouls and other friends come out to play." James wiggled his eyebrows behind his mask. "Tonight is Halloween, and this is the Hogwarts Masquerade."

 **A/N: Ugh I'm terrible at getting to the point. I promise more stuff will happen in the next chapter. It's all planned out, I just need to write it!**


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35: Masquerade, Part 2**

"So, people have been talking about your little…skirmish with Severus Snape. Word gets around, you know." The seventh-year, his eyes peeking through a steel-gray mask, leaned in conspiratorially, if they were sharing some secret. "Is it true that your Draught of Living Death produced a comatose state for more than twenty-five minutes with no adverse side effects?"

Ariadne had only been talking to this particular Ravenclaw student for about three minutes and she was already annoyed. "It was thirty, and yes. Sirius was fine. A bit of haziness when he woke up, but that's to be expected."

"So no _lasting_ damage," said the Ravenclaw, gesturing at Sirius with his wine glass and chortling.

"None that I haven't already repaid to Snivellus three-fold," said Sirius in a low voice.

"Of course, stories can be…exaggerated, with their retelling," said the Ravenclaw silkily. "I'm sure that you're acquainted with Florian Clarke, you know, our star chaser." He gestured at Sirius again as if he was including this information for his benefit, although Sirius wasn't on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. "I witnessed him put out a mouse for almost an hour with less than half an ounce of his draught."

"Although I know it can be hard for you to distinguish among non-Ravenclaw students, Wilkens, I am not a mouse," said Sirius.

"Of course, of course, there are important anatomical differences in a human subject that must be taken into consideration. But for the purposes of the experiment, you and the mouse played analogous roles." Wilkens smiled in a way that was nearly indistinguishable from a smirk. "It must be such a privilege to work for as talented a witch as Miss Morrigan."

"The position of my personal potions guinea pig is always open, Wilkens," responded Ariadne with false sweetness. "In fact, I've been working away at an advanced targeted Shrinking Solution that needs testing. It can reduce the size of a selected area with remarkable position." She smiled even more widely. "I have yet to figure out if the effects are permanent, however. You can have the honor of being my first test subject, if that's what you covet. That is, if you have the…guts for it."

Wilkens' smile froze behind an expression of growing horror. "I, uh, appreciate the magnanimous offer, Miss Morrigan." He squinted off into the crowd, pretending to be looking for someone. "Well, I do believe that's Gottfried, over there! If you'll excuse me, I've been needing to collect the Transfiguration book I lent him over a month ago. A magical Halloween to you both." He nodded at Sirius and Ariadne and hurried off.

Sirius watched him depart with his lip curled, as if there was much more he would have liked to say and do to Wilkens. Ariadne caught his expression and said, "Don't worry, I charmed his pumpkin juice while he was blathering. In about fifteen minutes, he'll be admitting to everyone that he cheated off Clarke's Swelling Solution in Potions last week and that he attempted to fix the last Quidditch match by buying off Potter."

Sirius grinned at her. "That was quite devious, Morrigan…and a bit vengeful for a supposedly impartial prefect, don't you think?"

"I suppose I've learned a thing or two from the Marauders about extralegal punishment and when it's merited," replied Ariadne, smiling at him slyly as she finished her drink.

Sirius lightly placed a finger under her chin to tilt her face toward him, so quickly that Ariadne didn't have time to react. "You're beautiful when you smile, Ariadne Morrigan." Not missing a beat, he pointed to her empty glass. "May I replenish that for you?" Ariadne handed him the glass and he vanished in the crowd, moving toward the drinks table.

Ariadne was trying to process what had just happened when a female voice appeared next to her ear. "Magical Halloween, Ariadne Morrigan," it murmured. She whipped around to find the source, but no one seemed to be there.

"I'm not in the mood for any of your tricks tonight, James," said Ariadne.

The voice cackled faintly, as if coming from very far away. Ariadne turned again and came face-to-face with a young woman, whose pale blonde hair flowed out from under her black mask, decorated with white in the pattern of a skull. "I do hope you've enjoyed your time at playing Auror with your friends, Ariadne. It's shortly about to come to an end."

"And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?" asked Ariadne coolly.

The woman didn't answer her question. "Do you like my mask, Ariadne?"

"I know I'm supposed to be polite to strangers, but not particularly," responded Ariadne.

The woman laughed again, quietly. "Good. You're about to see a lot more of it."

"What House do you belong to?" asked Ariadne, with growing concern.

"The plans of our Dark Lord are much bigger than any arbitrary club for schoolchildren, Ariadne," said the young woman silkily. "You'll understand that before the night is over."

"As a prefect of Gryffindor House, I demand that you reveal your identity, on penalty of punishment by your head of House," Ariadne attempted desperately.

The blonde woman laughed one more time and slipped into the cover of a cloud of fog.

Ariadne attempted to follow her, but the fog and the crowd were much too thick. She was now searching for Sirius's tall, familiar frame when another voice spoke in her ear.

"Convenient, isn't it?"

Ariadne turned and almost collided with another face hidden by a skull mask, this time a man's. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"Everyone masked, multiple Houses mingling together, smoke and fog…each person's identity a secret. It's so convenient," he continued as if he hadn't heard her.

Ariadne reached for her wand, but the masked man had disappeared, almost supernaturally quickly. Disoriented and worried, Ariadne started and almost cast a hex when yet another voice issued into her ear.

"Where did you disappear to, Morrigan?"

Ariadne sighed in relief when Sirius's slightly concerned mouth and unmistakable shaggy black hair came into focus. "Sirius, something is wrong."

Sirius's frown deepened. "What's going on?"

Ariadne glanced around, as if expecting the blonde woman or the skull-masked man to reappear. "Let me tell you somewhere we won't be overheard."


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36: Masquerade, Part 3**

"Ariadne, we've been searching for ages."

Ariadne sighed and ran her fingers through her voluminous, dark hair; in a parallel motion, Sirius did exactly the same to his own rugged locks.

They were seated facing each other on Sirius's four-poster bed in the boys' dormitory, the only private escape from the party where they could remove their masks and speak freely about what Ariadne considered an imminent threat to everyone's safety.

"I know what I saw, Black. A man and a woman in skull masks. I didn't recognize either of them."

"I don't doubt the accuracy of your memory, Morrigan. Just that the characters in question are still at the masquerade. They must have left long ago."

"But then how would they carry out whatever plan they have for tonight?"

Sirius had taken on a brooding expression that Ariadne had come to know well; in the dim light of the dormitory, his eyes and furrowed brows seemed even darker than usual.

"I don't know. They could have cronies designated to do the dirty work. Or they could have laid some kind of trap they can trigger from afar." He paused and absentmindedly fiddled with his mask. "And you still can't confirm whether they were Hogwarts students?"

"They could be, based on my estimation of their ages. But it's not anyone I know."

"You must have disciplined three-quarters of the Hogwarts upperclassmen by this point, Morrigan, and you have the memory for it. If you don't know them…"

"It's harder to identify people with the masks. You're not really saying you think someone could have infiltrated Hogwarts?"

Sirius looked inscrutable again. "I'm not sure of anything, Morrigan. You know that You-Know-Who's connections within the castle are stronger than we anticipated. Yaxley, Clarice and their gang are evidence of that."

"But I also know that Hogwarts is virtually impossible to penetrate without someone knowing."

Sirius tilted his head to acknowledge her point.

"Don't you think we should tell someone? McGonagall? Warn everyone downstairs? End the masquerade early and send them back to their common rooms?"

Sirius shifted around and stretched his legs out on the bed. "No."

Ariadne opened her mouth to respond vehemently, but Sirius held up a hand to forestall her. "No, Morrigan, it's not because I don't want the party to end."

"But—"

"Or that I'm worried about us all getting in trouble for having an unsanctioned masquerade party."

"I was going to say—"

"And it's not because I'm worried about my reputation and being thought of as a wet blanket."

Ariadne glared at him. "Can I talk now?" 

Sirius frowned again. "I thought I had anticipated all of your possible objections."

Ariadne sighed. "You had better have a really good reason for not wanting to notify McGonagall immediately and put the entire castle into lockdown, Black."

"I have multiple reasons. For one, it would cause immediate panic and chaos. If you learned anything from our last brush with authority during an illicit social gathering, intoxicated teenagers who know they've been breaking the rules are impossible to evacuate in an orderly manner. Especially because we can't provide any concrete details about the threat. Two, if these…intruders' plan involves activating an enchantment of some kind remotely, ending the masquerade will almost certainly trigger it right away. And lastly, it is to our advantage to pretend that we know nothing about their plot and will be caught totally unawares. It gives us an edge of surprise."

"So what exactly are you suggesting we do? Just act like everything's fine and wait for them carry out their act of terror?"

"Mostly, yes. But you forget that we aren't completely defenseless."

"Without alerting any of the professors nor enlisting their help and protection, I'd say we essentially are," replied Ariadne, crossing her arms.

"Of course we aren't. We have you and me to look after things and manage the situation if it gets out of control."

"Are you ever going to stop wildly overestimating your abilities?"

"Are you ever going to start believing that you're the most powerful and magically capable witch in this castle?"

Ariadne was momentarily caught off guard by this question. "You know it's true, Ariadne, you have for a long time. You just need to start acting like it." Sirius leaned in towards her, his voice low and intense. "Forget your beloved professors, forget the Hogwarts staff that have turned a blind eye to prejudice and dark magic growing within these very walls. We've gone up against these would-be Death Eaters on our own, and we've won. You can handle this. We can handle this."

Almost involuntarily, Sirius's words conjured a montage of memories in Ariadne's mind. The forbidden Polyjuice Potion. That night in the Forbidden Forest with Clarice. Dueling Yaxley in the dungeons corridor. Holding Sirius's deathlike, lifeless body in her arms. When she was with Sirius, she felt powerful and fearless. She felt something bigger than herself.

"Ariadne?"

Sirius's gaze was now gentle and concerned, and it somehow felt even more intimate than when he touched her face earlier that night.

Ariadne cleared her throat. "I'm willing to defer notifying McGonagall and shutting down the masquerade…on the condition that we both remain absolutely vigilant to our surroundings and evacuate everyone at the first sign of trouble."

"Agreed."

They were both silent for a moment. "Something else on your mind, Morrigan?" Sirius asked finally.

Ariadne sighed again. "The woman and the man in those skull masks…they essentially warned me of something happening tonight. They gave me advance notice. Why?"

"They're playing mind games, Morrigan. It's a common tactic of You-Know-Who and his followers. They plant fear and confusion and intimidation. That's why it's best not to react by shutting down the entire castle. That's what they want, it gives them power over us. We have to show them we're not afraid."

Ariadne raised an eyebrow. "By partying like we're not being threatened by the forces of darkness?"

Sirius grinned. "Precisely."

"Speaking of the party, we should probably get back down there. They'll be wondering where we are."

Sirius shrugged. "They'll just assume we're shagging." He paused. "We could fulfill their expectations, if you like." He raised one of his own eyebrows suggestively.

"Black, I've just been threatened by potential Death Eaters and you've somehow convinced me we don't need help to deal with it. It's not exactly mood-setting."

"Suit yourself," he said, getting up and rummaging under his bed. "Drink?" He once again offered her a flask from his private stash of mulled mead.

This time, Ariadne accepted.


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37: Masquerade, Part 4**

"I would now like to thank our distinguished guests for honoring us with their presence tonight."

Ariadne and Sirius had re-entered the masquerade party to an unusual scene. James Potter, sporting his scarlet-and-gold lion mask and crimson dress robes, neatly set off by a gold tie, was standing on a table at the center of the common room and delivering a formal address to the attendees.

"The Bloodiest of Barons," James continued, inclining his head toward the Bloody Baron, "your Fatness, Friar of Hufflepuff," the Fat Friar bobbed up and down near the enchanted, starry ceiling, "and last but not least, Gryffindor's very own virtually decapitated alumnus, Nearly Headless Nick." Nick bowed in acknowledgement, holding on to his head, and there was a light smattering of applause. James hastily added, "I think that Peeves, the official infernal nuisance of Hogwarts, is also around here somewhere. I'm sure he will make his presence known at the appropriate time.

"I would also like to welcome our visitors from other Houses. I hope that tonight, we can provide you with a true showing of Gryffindor…hospitality."

He paused dramatically.

"Welcome, my witches, wizards, warlocks and spirits, to the Hogwarts Halloween Masquerade."

With these words, James ripped off his dress robes to reveal a bare, hairy torso and magically-enhanced claws. Every torch and candle in the common room was extinguished with a gust of chilling wind, and a glowing full moon emerged from behind the clouds in the celestial ceiling to illuminate the space instead. The silvery light cast eerie shadows over the stone walls, some of which, Ariadne noticed, seemed to creep and move with a life of their own. James uttered a wild, mournful howl, and started up a more primal, bass-y music, quite a contrast from the stately waltzes of earlier. The tables of drink and food slid over to the sides of the room, leaving a space in the middle for the dance floor. The entire common room itself seemed to have expanded, even as the darkness closed in on them.

All around Ariadne and Sirius, Hogwarts students were throwing off their robes and stripping down to their costumes. Ariadne turned to Sirius to find that he had grown a pair of sleek white fangs. Instead of the traditional red collar and black robes over a doublet, he had opted for a bare chest under a black, studded leather jacket, with black pants and boots to match. He had mussed his hair just the right amount and somehow given his lips a just-bitten, bright red tint, and Ariadne couldn't deny that the overall effect was striking and alluring.

"More of a Muggle-inspired look this year, I see?" observed Ariadne.

"It's not something I picked up from Muggle Studies, love." He winked at her. "This is my motorbike gear." He nodded at Ariadne, who was still wearing her dress robes. "Well, let's what you've got under there, Morrigan." He paused. "Aside from what I've already seen, that is."

Ariadne let the innuendo slide and snapped her fingers. Her gauzy blue dress robes disappeared and were replaced by an elegantly draped white fabric that hung off her bare shoulders and fell in soft folds to her feet. She also conjured a ball of bright red yarn to her hand.

Sirius failed to respond for so long that Ariadne prompted, "Don't tell me you don't know your classical mythology, Black. Medea was the greatest ancient sorceress, after all, and Ariadne of Crete was likely a witch, too."

Sirius seemed to be brought back to earth by her words. "Of course I understand the allusion, Morrigan. Though whether or not the Ariadne of mythology possessed magical powers—debatable. It was Theseus that slew the Minotaur, after all, and that would have required a wizard's abilities."

"He couldn't have navigated the labyrinth without Ariadne's help."

Instead of continuing to disagree with her, as she expected, Sirius tilted his head slightly, as if to take her in more fully. "Perhaps you're right. You look so much like a Greek goddess come to life from the pages of a history book that it's hard to imagine Ariadne of Crete wasn't also a witch. You're truly…transcendent." He took her hand. "Dance with me, Ariadne of Hogwarts?"

…

"I swear it was all Remus' idea. He thought it would be funny." James smiled wickedly through his magically enlarged, wolflike canines.

"I'm not sure I'll ever grasp your sense of humor, Potter," replied Ariadne.

"I mean if you really think about it, it's the perfect ruse to ensure that no one suspects the truth. After all, who would be crazy enough to dress up as a werewolf if their best friend is actually a werewolf? They'll never suspect!"

Ariadne raised an eyebrow. "I think Potter missed the introduction to logic lessons in intermediate Transfiguration last year."

"I think Potter's missed most of Transfiguration for most of the last year," drawled Sirius.

Ariadne and the Marauders were taking a brief retreat from an intense hour on the dance floor. Now that the "proper", formal segment of the masquerade was over, students were fully availing of themselves of the kind of party only Gryffindor could throw, which included a seemingly endless supply of alcohol, many willing dance partners, and an overall attitude of partying like this was the last night of fun they'd ever experience.

"Did you really approve of this, Remus?" asked Priya, her eyes alight with curiosity. Ariadne's slight intervention into their relationship had succeeded; Remus had let Priya in on his close-held secret. So far, it seemed to have had a positive effect on them both and relieved a great deal of the strain caused by his withdrawnness.

"I think it's fairly harmless," said Remus, his smile a little less reserved than usual as a result of a couple Butterbeers. "Werewolf is a popular costume for wizards and Muggles alike, no one will think anything of it."

James attempted a snarl. "What d'you think, Lupin? Realistic enough?" Sirius whacked him reprovingly around the head with his mask.

"Well, I think the most realistic costume award has to go to Morrigan. She literally dressed up as her own name," said James.

Ariadne shrugged. "My father was very imaginative with names. And he always wanted to name his children after a magical sperson that both wizards and Muggles would know."

"Was one of Greek Ariadne's powers irresistible seduction, 'cause if so, you're nailing that too," said James, after Ariadne was approached by yet another solicitation to dance, which she politely declined.

"I suppose this is the most shoulder most Hogwarts boys ever get to see," Ariadne responded after the rejected suitor left, indicating her own bare ones.

"That guy wasn't half bad-looking…might've been a Slytherin, though," commented James, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

"Not up to your standards, Ariadne? Or are you only dancing with Sirius tonight?" probed Priya slyly. Ariadne discreetly took note of the fact that everyone in the group was suddenly paying close attention to her answer.

"It's nothing like that," replied Ariadne, adjusting the folds of her dress slightly. "I'd just prefer to fully enjoy myself tonight." She let that cryptic response linger for just a moment. "And Sirius is a better dancer."

James let out an incongruous wolf-whistle, Priya gave Ariadne a knowing look, and Sirius seemed immensely satisfied with her answer.

"On that note, what do you magnetically attractive folk say to getting back out there?" Ariadne noticed that although James was speaking to them, his eyes were elsewhere, following a pretty red-headed sixth-year Ariadne recognized as Lily Evans.

"Ooh yes, I love this song." Priya grabbed a bemused-looking Lupin by the arm and dragged him up from his seat.

Sirius wordlessly offered Ariadne his own arm. Ariadne could almost feel the intense satisfaction radiating from him at being chosen as her preferred dance partner out of all others.

Ariadne hadn't merely said that for his benefit (and it seemed like Sirius knew this.) It was true. Sirius moved with her powerfully, confidently and sensually. Their bodies were perfectly in sync—whether from the practice they had accumulated putting their bodies together in other ways, or for some other reason, Ariadne didn't know. But she usually preferred to dance alone or with a group of her friends—until she started dancing with Sirius.

The music was deep, thrumming and fluid. Ariadne lightly placed a hand on the studded leather shoulder of Sirius's jacket as they moved in unison and he enclosed her waist in his arm, pulling her closer. His lips brushed her hair as he murmured into her ear, "Would you do me the honor of coming back to my bed with me tonight, beautiful Ariadne?"

At that precise moment, the celestial ceiling that was lighting the dance floor went black, and silence fell over the common room. To her horror, Ariadne realized that she had stopped moving and was completely immobilized. A figure wreathed in ghostly green light rose in the center of the dance floor. He was wearing a mask patterned like a skull.

" _Students of Hogwarts school_." He spoke in a harsh, echoing voice, as though there were five of him, and all had vocal cords strummed by metal saws. " _The Dark Lord demands tributes of your loyalty. The darkness grows. The walls of this castle will not protect you forever. Join him, or perish in darkness._ " He finished speaking and his head hung down toward his chest, as if he were a puppet whose master had let go of his strings. A moment later, Ariadne realized that the immobilizing spell had lifted and she could feel her limbs again.

" _Stupefy!_ " screamed two voices in unison. The red beams of light merely passed through the man's body. The starry lights and the moon returned, and the common room was flooded with panicked voices and confusion.

Ariadne and Sirius rushed to the center of the floor where the man had been standing. His image was already fading.

"Doubling enchantment," said Ariadne, stating the obvious. She was frustrated almost to tears. Sirius released a few choice curses.

"Can you trace it?" he asked.

"No. Not enough time."

They looked at each other helplessly.

…

Ariadne couldn't sleep. She had been tossing and turning in her four-poster for almost two hours, and it was already late when McGonagall had finally gotten the situation under control and ordered everyone to bed.

She replayed the haunting message over and over in her head, unable to stop thinking about how easily Voldemort's followers had slipped into Hogwarts, her safe haven, and son the most sacred wizarding night of the year, no less. Even after the ambush by Clarice, even after her run-ins with Yaxley and Florian Clarke, Ariadne had always felt safe at Hogwarts. Now, that feeling was no more.

Ariadne left her bed and slipped down the stairs, silently deactivating and reactivating the sensing charms McGonagall had placed in the common room. She instead took the stairs to the boys' dormitory, climbing to the very top.

The door to the seventh-year dormitory was ajar and the curtains to Sirius's four-poster bed were slightly open, as if he had been expecting her. He was awake, of course. He lifted up the covers and she crawled in, curling up on his chest. Neither of them said a word. He wrapped her in his arms and gently stroked her hair until they both fell asleep.


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38: Confession**

Ariadne woke to Sirius's warm body next to her, his face buried in his pillow and their arms loosely touching. She carefully extricated herself from the bedclothes and hoped to make a clean, discreet escape from the dormitory before anyone had the chance to comment on her presence.

Of course, the Marauders were the last people who would allow that to happen.

"Good morning, Morrigan!"

James Potter's face peeped through the curtains around Sirius's bed, beaming in his sunshiny way. Sirius merely grunted in response. It seemed like this was more or less a normal routine for them.

"I see the concepts of privacy and personal space have yet to penetrate the abode of the seventh-year Gryffindor boys," commented Ariadne dryly.

"Piss off, Potter," muttered Sirius into his pillow, his voice husky with sleep. "You can stay, Morrigan," he added, now rolling onto his side.

Ariadne had been a bit preoccupied to properly take this in the night before, but Sirius slept only in loose pajama bottoms, leaving this rest of his body bare. As he rose out of his bed and stretched slightly to pull open the curtains of his four-poster, she couldn't help but notice the way his torso flexed and moved, and the way his low waistband hugged his hips.

"Sleep well last night, Morrigan?" asked James innocently. "Or, you know, not so well, because you had other things to do…"

Ariadne merely rolled her eyes at James, but internally breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed she would be able to play off her spending the night in the dormitory as merely a post-masquerade, dancing-and-alcohol-fueled tryst with Sirius, rather than disclose that something much more intimate had happened.

"I think you're the only one who slept well last night, James," replied Remus wearily from the far end of the room. He did, indeed, look tired, even more so than normal.

"Regardless of how you slept last night, get a shower and a cup of tea, because we have a lot of work to do," said Sirius in a surprisingly brisk voice, given that he had been sound asleep only moments earlier.

"I can't trace the source of the doubling enchantment, Black, I've already told you that," said Ariadne.

"That's not what I mean. I don't see much purpose in trying to hunt down the lackey messenger. They weren't a real threat. Though last night was a…regrettable incursion into our masquerade party, we already have plans in motion to combat Voldemort's influence within the castle. We just need to keep our eyes on the bigger picture."

"Are you referring to the half-baked scheme to impersonate Clarice and infiltrate Yaxley's gang? Because the Polyjuice Potion isn't ready yet, and I don't know if you noticed, but neither Clarice nor Yaxley or any Hogwarts student we've identified as a follower of You-Know-Who carried out last night's plot."

"First of all, the Polyjuice Potion will be ready within a week if we keep working on it," Sirius shot her a significant look, "and second, you don't know that Clarice and Yaxley weren't involved. It would be foolish for them to use people we already know are followers as the faces of their terror plot, of course they used strangers. It also makes their following seem larger than it really is. Remember, this was a tactic designed to create fear and doubt. We can't let them achieve that."

"Sometimes a little doubt is a good thing, especially when it results from a failure that we should learn from," responded Ariadne, with a slight emphasis on "failure" and "learn."

"What happened last night wasn't your fault, Ariadne," interjected Remus gently.

Ariadne almost turned and snapped at Remus, but caught herself, remembering that he didn't deserve any of the blame. She instead turned to the person who did.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe it wasn't entirely my fault. Maybe the person who convinced me not to tell the professors and promised me we would look out for the slightest sign of something wrong shares in some of the blame, too."

"Morrigan, we did everything we could have done. You said it yourself, you can't trace a doubling enchantment that only lasts for 20 seconds. The bottom line is, no one was hurt last night and Hogwarts is fine," said Sirius bracingly.

"No, it isn't! Someone entered the castle last night who shouldn't have been there, and we had no idea. Doubling enchantments only have a range of a couple miles at most. They would have had to have been within the grounds to create the body double. And while all of this was happening, we were drinking and dancing the night away in our infantile costumes."

"You were letting yourself be seventeen-year-old witch at a Halloween party, Morrigan. Which is what you are, even though I've practically had to coerce you to act like it," said Sirius exasperatedly.

"What happened to 'we've taken on Dark wizards by ourselves before, and we can do it again'"? said Ariadne, mocking his self-important tone.

"We have!"

"So which is it, Sirius? Are we teenagers, or defenders of Hogwarts against the forces of darkness? Because you can't seem to decide, and it keeps screwing us up."

"It's both. You're the only one who seems to see a fundamental incompatibility between the two," said Sirius.

"I'm not sure I can keep mixing together your high-blown ideas about protecting the school with parties and masquerades. Maybe we should only work together."

"Is that why you came to my bed last night when you couldn't sleep?"

Ariadne tensed. She couldn't believe Sirius would blow open their secret like that in front of a now-gaping James and a terse-looking Remus. In just a slip and her dressing gown, she felt naked.

"I don't see the relevance of that to our current discussion," replied Ariadne brusquely.

"We couldn't go back to being strangers working on a Transfiguration project, Morrigan, not now," said Sirius, his voice now husky.

"And why is that?"

Sirius strode over to where Ariadne was standing in a few quick steps, and bringing her face to his, kissed her deeply and meltingly. When he pulled away, he looked into her eyes and said quietly, "Because I love you, Ariadne Morrigan."

Ariadne's mind went blank.


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter 39: A Friend**

Ariadne ate dinner alone that night, ostensibly studying for Arithmancy, with the dense textbook laying open next to her plate. But even though her eyes were on it, she wasn't seeing any of the contents of its pages. Instead, she was reliving the events of the morning over and over again, wishing she somehow could have changed their course.

After Sirius kissed her and professed his love for her, Ariadne unleashed an indignant diatribe and stormed out of the dormitory. She couldn't even remember exactly what she said—something about using a traumatic event to manipulate her emotions. She left Sirius looking bewildered, and as she exited, heard James say tentatively, "Might not have been the best timing on that, mate."

Sirius and the others had maintained a respectful distance from her in Transfiguration today, most likely sensing that trying to talk to her would not have produced good outcomes for anyone. But Ariadne could guess how hard that must have been for Sirius, because (as much as she hated to admit it) it was hard for her, too. She had become accustomed to his sarcastic, witty, challenging presence- the sly comments in her ear, the furiously whispered debates when they disagreed with McGonagall (and more often, each other) on a point of theory, the raised eyebrows and suggestive comments that indicated that they might be spending some time alone together that night.

 _Stupid, emotional, hormonal boy_ , thought Ariadne to herself. One night of dancing, a pretty dress and a shared moment of vulnerability and he thinks he's in love. Ariadne couldn't believe he was being so foolish. She thought Sirius was smarter than to fall prey to a teenage infatuation. She thought that his cool, snarky, aloof exterior and the bristly friction between them would protect them from something messy like this. She thought they had a kind of understanding about what they were—and never imagined Sirius would suddenly want more.

Ariadne was pulled away from her thoughts by the quiet appearance of Remus. "May I sit here?" he asked, pointing to the seat next to her.

Ariadne hesitated, but nodded. "But I hope you know better than to come here as his apologist to spin some sad tale and try to win me over."

Remus gave one of his small smiles. "I wouldn't dream of it, Ariadne. Unless my dreams involved Madam Pomfrey putting my body parts back in the right places."

Ariadne couldn't help but smile a little in return. "Well, then, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

"Just a friend checking in with another friend who might be in distress."

"I'm not _distressed_ by Sirius apparently confusing his Firewhisky for a love potion."

"That's not what I'm talking about, Ariadne," replied Remus gently. "I know you still haven't had time to process what happened at the masquerade. And so many things happened so quickly right after it."

Ariadne released a breath and almost felt herself deflate. Remus was right, of course. She was still disturbed and troubled by the message carried to Hogwarts directly from Voldemort himself. But Sirius's ill-timed declaration had obscured everything.

"I know that you're going to try to tell me it wasn't my fault. But Black and I had tasked ourselves with looking after the castle, and we completely abdicated that responsibility. In fact, we never should have taken it on in the first place. I should have told McGonagall immediately as soon as the first girl in the skull mask threatened me."

Remus gave her a quizzical look. "Girl in a skull mask? You're going to have to fill me in, Ariadne."

Ariadne realized that in their overconfident stupidity, she and Sirius hadn't even informed the Marauders about what had gone on at the masquerade before the mysterious messenger's appearance. She hurried through the details with Remus, concluding, "We had plenty of signs that something bad was going to happen, and instead of trying to prevent it, we got drunk and hit the dance floor, and somewhere along the way Sirius decided he fancied me."

"Sirius, half of Gryffindor House, and a handful of Ravenclaws," murmured Remus, half to himself.

"Exactly!" Ariadne practically threw up her hands in frustration. "Remus, you've been Sirius's friend for much longer than I have. How could he see me in a white dress and suddenly decide he's in love with me?"

Remus's puzzled look had returned. "There's not much that's 'sudden' about it, Ariadne." He paused. "Well, I suppose I can see how it would have seemed out of the blue to you. But not to others who are close to Sirius."

Ariadne folded her arms. "Please enlighten me."

"Well…" Remus hesitated. "I'm not exactly sure how to break this to you gently, but Sirius has been madly in love with you for months." He paused. "Of course, he hadn't exactly said so in so many words, at least until this morning."

Ariadne was still in denial. "But doesn't Black have a new love interest for every phase of the moon?"

Remus smiled slightly. "I know that that's the…persona Sirius has cultivated around the student body, but it's based less in reality than you might think. Sirius doesn't have any more time in the day than we do to divide among studying, sleeping, scheming with James, and going to class. It doesn't always leave that much extra time for wooing unsuspecting witches."

"I'd say he does carve out a little surplus time by regularly skipping class, but your point taken. Still, he just never seemed the type to dramatically fall for a girl and then risk making a fool of himself by declaring it to everyone. I felt like I was in a fluff piece written for _Witch Weekly_ ," replied Ariadne.

"I don't think Sirius expected to fall for you like this, either, Ariadne," said Remus. "But I've never seen him act this way about a girl. He almost never stops talking about you. And even when he isn't, I can tell that he's thinking about you. He's had flings and infatuations, like you say, but not like this."

Ariadne frowned. "What do you mean?"

Remus gave another of his discreet smiles. "He'd petrify me if I told you the degree to which he's obsessed over minute details of your…relationship, but suffice to say, I think Sirius was quite astonished to find someone else at Hogwarts who is as brilliant, attractive and confident as he considers himself. And when he got over his surprise, he realized that all he wanted was to be with that person."

Ariadne was quiet, so Remus continued. "I'm not sure if he had even admitted to himself how he felt about you before this morning. But I can assure you, it was no impulsive whim. I suspect something about the masquerade and the horrible things that happened last night put his feelings into focus for the first time. And I think he really meant what he said."

Ariadne felt like she was sinking, into a place she didn't understand and didn't know what to do. It was an alien feeling to her. Her concern must have showed, because Remus's expression softened and he tried to comfort her. "You're the perpetually unfazed Ariadne Morrigan. Nothing scares you. You can handle a little emotional involvement with a teenage boy."

Ariadne wasn't sure about that.


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40: Brewing, Part 2**

Ariadne couldn't recall ever feeling nervous around Sirius. Remus was right that very few things scared or intimidated her. Sirius's effortless good looks, high social standing, and reputation as a playboy had never meant much to her, and even as his academic rival, she was confident she could outperform him. After they had become friends and later, friends with additional benefits, she sometimes felt excitement or intense anticipation waiting for their next encounter, and even a sense of comfort when she and the Marauders would huddle around the common room fire, hatching their next plot. But she had never felt nervous thinking about him, waiting for him, or in his presence. Now, she felt all three.

Ariadne was waiting in the Potions classroom, having lifted the enchantment hiding their Polyjuice Potion and checked its consistency and color. She would have snuck into the dungeons to complete the brew herself, but had found a note slipped into her bag earlier that evening. It read, _tonight, midnight. I'll bring..,_ followed by a sequence of numbers. Ariadne knew where to look to decipher the code, of course. After matching the numbers to spells in Bridget Wenlock's journals, Ariadne noticed that the first letter of each incantation spelled out two words: _target samples_. Of course. In order to complete the potion, they needed a little bit of the person they were trying to transform into.

Ariadne barely heard the thick, bolted door of the dungeon open slightly as Sirius quietly slipped in. Without moving her eyes from the brew she was ladling out, Ariadne said, "The consistency is not quite right. It should be slightly textured, not this smooth and homogenous." She finally looked up. "I think we should let it thicken for one more day."

Ariadne was unprepared by the intensity of the emotions that assaulted her upon finally seeing Sirius's face again, up close. _It's only been a day_ , she reminded herself. _Get a grip._

Ariadne couldn't figure out how this was possible, but Sirius's brief absence from her life seemed to have multiplied his handsomeness ten-fold. He was standing just a bit awkwardly inside the doorway, his loose robes and sweater vest only hinting at the trim shape of his body. His long hair was rumpled and pulled back from his face, and his dark eyes were searching her face for clues as to how to proceed. He was clutching a small vial in his right hand.

Ariadne fought back an intense craving to be close to him. But everything between them was confusing now.

"Well?" she asked as he failed to respond. "Do you think we should let it brew for one day longer?"

Sirius finally broke from his uncertain pose and came next to her to examine the cauldron. "And when has my opinion ever changed your mind, Morrigan?"

Ariadne internally breathed a sigh of relief that the tension was at last broken. "I can't recall a particular incident."

Sirius made eye contact with her. "Then I suppose we'll let it brew for another day."

Ariadne removed a sample of the potion to conduct a few more tests on it. "We won't be needing those just yet, then," she said, indicating the vial in his hand.

"I realize that. Just trying to be prepared."

Ariadne took the vial from him, somehow managing to do so without allowing their hands to touch. She held it up the light. It contained several long, silky dark hairs.

"I suppose these belong to my cousin," Ariadne conjectured, setting the vial down on the table.

"Correct," replied Sirius.

"How did you get them? Clarice hasn't exactly been keen to hang out with us since the ambush," asked Ariadne.

"I have my methods," answered Sirius cryptically, in typical Marauder fashion. Ariadne raised an eyebrow. "I didn't sleep with her, if that's what you're thinking," he clarified somewhat hastily.

Ariadne visibly shuddered in disgust, and her face must have showed a similar emotion. "I got someone to pay off Clarke. Told him a pervy wanker from Hufflepuff was really into his girlfriend and that he could make three Galleons off it," explained Sirius.

Ariadne's expression continued to show her distaste for Sirius's "methods," but she didn't say anything further. "Was that particular reaction induced by the thought of me sleeping with another woman, or something else?" Sirius now asked somewhat more quietly.

"It was a reaction to the thought of you sleeping with a horrible egomaniac who tried to ambush and kill us," answered Ariadne immediately.

"Fair enough," he conceded.

"Well, whatever you had to do, and as much as it relied on the depraved and corruptible nature of the male population at Hogwarts, I hope it worked," said Ariadne, examining the glass vial one more time. "It would be rather awkward if I just turned into a random brunette from Ravenclaw."

"It will work," asserted Sirius confidently.

"A healthy dose of failure and rebuttal certainly hasn't tempered your overconfidence any," muttered Ariadne. She instantly realized the double significance of her words and regretted it.

Sirius took this as his opportunity. He walked around the cauldron so he could look her directly in the eyes. "Ariadne," he began, as if he wasn't entirely sure where he was going.

Ariadne was transfixed. She couldn't have looked away if she tried. She struggled with all of the emotions produced by being in such close proximity to Sirius again. It was almost as if she had…missed him? _Miss him? What's there to miss?_

Before she could complete that train of thought, Sirius continued, "I wanted to say I'm sorry for springing that on you yesterday morning." He paused. "It wasn't the right time, and in retrospect that was obvious."

"No kidding," breathed Ariadne. It was like she didn't quite have access to enough air in her lungs.

"I got caught up in all of the emotions from the masquerade ball, and what happened after…" Ariadne assumed he was referring to her nocturnal visitation. "I suppose I wanted to sweep you off your feet, the way you've swept me off mine over the past few months."

Ariadne still didn't know what to say.

"The way we were dancing, and how you looked that night, and when you came to my bed after…the incident…I just thought there was something happening between us that was…different, from before. Clearly, I was wrong."

Ariadne could see the disappointment in his eyes at these words. She couldn't help but wish that Sirius had never fallen for her, that this had never happened, that she could flip a time-turner and they could go back to the way things were.

"I appreciate the apology," said Ariadne clearly and firmly in response. "I'll admit that this isn't a position I've really been in before. I'm not sure what else to say besides, I hope we can still be friends."

Sirius seemed surprised by her admission. "You mean you haven't had to dash the hopes and dreams of countless suitors before me?"

Ariadne was confused. "No? Should I have?"

Sirius shrugged. "I just find that hard to believe. Your confidence is so magnetically attractive, and you are rather beautiful, too, you know."

"Yes, you've said as much," said Ariadne somewhat dryly.

"It's still true."

His words hung in the air between them, suspended in uncertainty.

"Well, I look forward to being continually corrected on the finer points of my animal transmogrification by you, as your friend," said Sirius briskly, now getting up and making to leave.

Ariadne was relieved. He was suggesting that they could return to the previous state of affairs between them. Although…

"Wait," she said. Sirius paused. "Can we also go back to having sex without any attachments or feelings?"

Sirius considered this for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't see why not."


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 41: Pillow Talk**

Ariadne grabbed the nearest bedpost of the scarlet-and-gold four-poster with one hand and a handful of bedsheet with the other as her body arched with pleasure. A volume of ancient rune lexicography she and Sirius (but mostly Ariadne) had been studying earlier tumbled to the floor in the flurry of movement. As her breathing gradually slowed, Sirius emerged from under the sheets, hair messy and disheveled, looking pleased. Based on the level of Ariadne's vocalizations, he was confident that she was, too. He flopped down on the bed next to her, running his sweaty fingers through his hair. Instead of getting up and dressing herself immediately, as she usually did, Ariadne (for reasons she couldn't explain, even to herself) rolled over to Sirius's side and laid her head on his chest. He instinctively circled an arm around her, as if it were only a natural response, and they laid there in silence, for once.

Ariadne listened to the steady rhythm of his heart, remembering when she heard it slow and then stop during their risky experiment with Draught of Living Death. Sirius seemed immersed in some memory or thought, as well. Ariadne was the most relaxed she had been in weeks. She almost felt herself drifting off, comfortable and warm in familiar arms. She shook herself lightly to stay awake.

"Why are you so afraid to let this happen?" murmured Sirius, gently rubbing his hand along a stretch of her bare waist.

Ariadne didn't even have to ask what he meant—they could anticipate each other's thoughts so easily. It was like they both knew where the other's mind was at. "Relationships don't just 'happen', Black. They require time and commitment."

Sirius sighed. "I know that, Ariadne "obsessively-plan-everything" Morrigan. But for us, it would be so easy."

Ariadne titled her head up to him to give him a penetrating look. "Explain."

Sirius seemed slightly surprised by her interrogative tone, but rose to the challenge as if he had just been asked an exam question. "First off, we already spend most of our time together and share the same interests."

"Such as?"

"You know—putting blood supremacists in their place, acing Arithmancy exams, defeating dark wizards," answered Sirius with a slightly wicked grin.

Ariadne raised an eyebrow but allowed him to continue.

"Second, we're different, and might, er, clash sometimes—" he glanced at her, "but we're actually incredibly similar in a few important ways. Determined, stubborn, clever, ambitious, brave to the point of recklessness." Ariadne opened her mouth to object but Sirius added, "You can't deny that, Ariadne. You and I would break every school rule and McGonagall's cold, hard heart if we knew it was the right thing to do."

"And lastly," Sirius paused for dramatic effect, "we're already quite good at shagging each other."

"You presume a lot."

"I don't need to. My presumption is based on—what was it you said back then, right before snogging me?—reality and not delusion," Sirius answered back with a smirk. "Anyway, are you not convinced? That was a logically rigorous treatise worth full marks from Vector. Us dating would be a breeze, Morrigan."

"I'm not interested, Black," said Ariadne flatly, now pulling away from the reach of his arm. "I've been convinced into something like this before, and it wasn't 'a breeze' at all."

Sirius's eyes deepened with intrigue. Ariadne could tell that he desperately wanted to know more, for Ariadne to let him in on this personal matter, to understand better her aversion to letting their friendship slide easily into something else.

"You said before you didn't have many previous paramours to shoot down," he said, less playfully and more gently.

"I didn't."

Ariadne watched the furrow between Sirius's brows intensify. "Then what happened, Ariadne?"

Ariadne sighed and shifted on his chest to get more comfortable, inadvertently causing their bare torsos to press even more tightly together, a sensation which she tried to ignore. "I don't have some deep, traumatic story from my past to reveal. I dated Herbert Kensington for a bit in sixth year, he was a git, and I decided that men are nowhere near worth the trouble."

"You dated _Kensington_? That skinny Ravenclaw who looked like he was perpetually swallowing bobotuber pus?"

"The very same."

"Well, it's no wonder you have such a rubbish opinion of Hogwarts boys."

Ariadne inclined her head in agreement. "I found out he was using me for answers to Arithmancy homework because he was afraid of flunking out before he could get his N.E. ."

Sirius snorted derisively. "I can assure you, you would never have that problem with me." He paused, and clarified, "Neither the copying off your answers, nor the fear of failing my N.E. ."

"Perhaps not. But I'm not taking any more chances. Boys are an unnecessary distraction, and frankly, I have more important things to do." She looked up at him again. "I'm sorry, Sirius."

Sirius gazed back into her eyes, his own intense and dark again. "Nothing to apologize for, Morrigan. I'm not entitled to your romantic interest, no matter how perfect we are for each other nor how great the sex we have." Ariadne waited for him to say something else about being in love with her, but he didn't. Instead, he sat up and began rummaging for his robes among the tangled sheets. Ariadne swore she head him muttering disdainfully under his breath, "Herbert _Kensington..._ "


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter 42: Marauder Meeting**

"Remind me again why the Gryffindor Quidditch team locker room is the best possible location for our meeting?" asked Ariadne as she pushed a pile of sweaty Quidditch robes along a wooden bench to make space for her to seat herself.

"It was James's idea, actually," said Sirius. "Practice is over for today and there's no match for another two weeks, so it's guaranteed to be empty. It's smart to switch up our meeting locations, in case we're being watched."

James himself emerged from the showers, toweling his ruffled hair dry, covered only by another towel around his waist. "It was also awfully convenient for me to just stick around after practice."

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "If we're trying to meet in places no one will expect, James should certainly try the library."

"Ahh, but sneaky Slytherins and Ravenclaws are all too accustomed to seeing you and I there, Morrigan," replied Sirius.

"I actually don't think most Hogwarts students would find you bothering some girl trying to study at the library particularly out of the ordinary," said Ariadne dryly.

"But you're not 'some girl,' Ariadne Morrigan," contradicted Sirius.

"Despite your attempts to distinguish me as somehow exceptional to my sex, I do in fact identify as a woman, Black."

Sirius sighed in mild exasperation. "Fine, I should rephrase that. You and I in the library together, the mere fact of it, is rather notable. Don't forget how we've saved Gryffindor House from the anti-party tyranny of McGonagall, publicly dueled, and challenged Snivellus to competition of potion-making skill that everyone seems to have heard about. You may not be very attentive to your public perception, Morrigan, but Hogwarts knows us now as the ringleaders of a sort of movement."

"We saved a destructive, illegal party, broke the no-magical-fighting-rule trying to stun each other over an argument about homework, and experimented with dangerous potions. What a beautifully mixed record," murmured Ariadne.

"Not to mention that no one can figure out if you want to shag or kill each other," added James helpfully.

"The playboy and the prefect," murmured Remus, almost to himself.

"What did you say?" asked Sirius.

Remus looked up with that expression of having been pulled out of his absorbing thoughts. "I just meant that you two seem like opposites to outsiders, even though you're actually quite alike. That's why you're such a striking and unusual combination. You occupy social roles that seem incompatible."

Ariadne couldn't help thinking that Remus had put his finger on why her feelings about Sirius were so confused and conflicting. Sirius wanted to save the world (or at least, Hogwarts, which was the world to them, really) and Ariadne wanted to help him do the right thing, but he also wanted to break all the rules, endanger her status as a prefect and possibly her future, and do it all while being her lover.

"Well-said, Remus," said Sirius, looking thoughtful. "I think the cauldron waste-water supporting You-Know-Who at Hogwarts wasn't prepared for how powerful the combination of all our talents would be. And not just Morrigan and I" (was Sirius ever so briefly avoiding eye contact with Ariadne, or was she imagining it?) but you, Remus, and James as well. You have very important roles to play in our current plan."

"Which brings me to the point of this meeting," he said, clearing his throat. "The Polyjuice Potion is complete, and the timing couldn't be better. Our second source—not the one who backstabbed us and nearly lured us to our death in the Forbidden Forest—" he clarified, "has informed me that the Junior Death Eater Society, Incorporated will be meeting in one of the old punishment dungeons tomorrow night."

"How appropriate," commented Ariadne. Sirius shot her a significant look in agreement.

"So, James and Remus, your task was to study and learn Clarice's movements, and develop a plan to ensure that she will not be attending that meeting, nor wandering about the castle while her doppelganger does so."

James puffed out his chest in importance, which nearly caused his loosely wrapped towel to slip down his waist. "Clothe yourself, Potter," requested Ariadne, levitating and sending a crumpled pile of robes flying into his arms, which he deftly caught.

"I must say, I'm the tiniest bit offended, Morrigan," he said as he pulled his shirt and trousers on. "I don't think a witch has ever told me that."

"Nothing personal, I just can't take you seriously with no pants on," said Ariadne.

"Well, I suppose that rules out a range of activities," muttered James. "That, and, erm, other reasons why I would probably never not wear pants around you," he added hastily, glancing at Sirius, who did not seem to be paying much attention to their exchange.

James finally pulled his robe on, straightened his tie, and cleared his throat. "So, Moony and I have been watching Clarice and taking notes, and now have a full record of her schedule."

Ariadne snorted. "Well, I could have just asked that idiot Wilkens for her course schedule the night of the masquerade. He's not very suspecting."

James cocked an eyebrow at her and grinned. "Oh, it's not just her course schedule we have, Morrigan. We know _everything_ about her routine. When she eats dinner, when she wakes up in the morning, when she takes a shower, when she sneaks off with Clarke to the broom closet on the fourth floor…" The group grimaced collectively.

"Anyway, we know exactly where she'll be all day tomorrow, shouldn't be hard to ambush and knock her out right before the meeting at nine," concluded James.

"And where do you propose we hide her?" asked Ariadne.

"Not to worry, Morrigan, I have an idea for that," inserted Sirius. Ariadne caught the tiniest wink directed at her, so fleeting she could easily convince herself she had imagined it.

Ariadne leaned forward toward the group, as much as was possible on the uncomfortable bench seating. "What else do you know about this meeting? If I'm going to do a convincing performance of my indoctrinated cousin, I need to know everything. I mean, besides what I already know," she said, indicated a thick file she had compiled with information about Clarice.

"There are a few things you need to know in order to play the part," said Sirius briskly. Ariadne slipped a notebook and quill out from her bag, and Sirius raised a hand reprovingly. "You'll need to memorize this, Ariadne. Notes won't help you."

" _Au contraire_ , Sirius Black. I can access my notes at all times, anywhere I need to," replied Ariadne. She neatly printed a phrase in her notebook, then tapped it with her wand. The ink disappeared. Then, Ariadne opened her palm. Her handwriting, with the identical words she had written, were now on her skin, as crisp as if they had been tattooed there. She closed her palm, then reopened it. The words were gone.

James gaped at her, probably wondering how many more History of Magic exams he could have passed, knowing this spell. Sirius seemed unamused. "If I didn't know you better, and you weren't Ariadne Morrigan, I'd say that little trick was responsible for all your success on our Ancient Runes exams," he said.

"Well, I'm certainly glad you're wiser than to accuse me of cheating," said Ariadne coolly. "For your own sake."

Sirius arched an eyebrow but didn't respond. "Fine, then, take your notes. And teach me that spell later—it could come in handy."

"And have you beat me on our next exam? Not a chance, Black."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "You won't even take the opportunity to rub in my face that you know a spell I don't? I thought you enjoyed playing teacher."

"I've already taught you quite a lot this semester, Black."

Sirius caught her eye, with that old gleam again. "I suppose I can't deny that." There was a brief pause.

Ariadne tapped her quill against her notebook impatiently. "So? What's this top-secret information you've gathered about Death Eater initiates and their meetings?"

"Right," said Sirius quickly, as if recollecting himself from some distracting thoughts. "There's a password to get into the meeting. _Imperium sanguinem._ " Ariadne shuddered as she wrote this down. "They typically begin meetings by asking each member to report on their tasks."

"Fortunately for you, since double-crossing and failing to properly ambush us, Clarice hasn't been assigned a major mission," elaborated Remus, who was leaning against the far wall of the locker room. "You could say she's on a sort of…probation."

"Well, knowing my cousin, she won't be handling that well," muttered Ariadne, now writing more. "Then what?"

Sirius swung a leg over the narrow bench and seated himself facing Ariadne. "Truthfully, Ariadne, we don't know what may happen in the second half of the meeting," said Sirius, his voice significantly more tense. "They may plot further attacks, or report on reconnaissance. They may contact someone outside the castle. This is precisely why we're sending you in there. To find out," he finished.

Ariadne looked him evenly in the eye. "And if they've brought a Muggle-born student to torture?"

"Then you get the hell out of there and we head straight to McGonagall."

"How?"

Sirius broke his concerned expression with a sly smile. "Worry not, Morrigan, we've got something worked out for that, too."

 **A/N: I know it's been a while, but we're back!**


End file.
